Bleeding Hearts
by Cardio Necrosis
Summary: The night Nicole met the Doctor, her entire life changed. It's all well and good that he saved the school from being taken over by aliens, but what he didn't save her from was the consequences. First in my Shadows on the Moon series.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I am not RTD, nor do I own anything Doctor Who related.**

**A/N: This is a part of a series. This is the first installment.**

* * *

"Oi, hurry up, Nicole! We're gonna be late!" Vanessa shouted.

Nicole rolled her eyes while she dusted off her black wide-necked shirt, even thought there wasn't anything on it. "Well, maybe if you hadn't hogged the bathroom, I'd be done by now!" she shot back. Her mousy brown hair hung limply to her shoulders, most of it still damp from the shower.

"Hurry up! Who do you have to impress anyway?" Vanessa whined, stepping into the bathroom. Although she was talking to Nicole, she was looking at her own reflection, smoothing her hands over her tight, white spaghetti-stringed shirt, and her black skirt that barely flared over her arse.

Nicole raised an eyebrow at her sister, before glancing back into the mirror and putting on her mascara. "And who are you trying to impress then?"

"That really is none of your business," Vanessa snapped, smoothing her hands over her bum.

"How old is he?" Nicole asked instead, suddenly a little self-conscious of how she looked when she realized how much effort her sister had put into her wardrobe.

"Your age," she answered, brushing her bleached hair out of her eyes. She'd spent over an hour curling her hair, and more than enough hairspray to make sure it didn't go flat.

"What? I'm eighteen!"

"So what?"

"You're fourteen!" Nicole pointed out angrily. Vanessa just smirked. Nicole scoffed. "It's Robert, isn't it? Miss Hanson's son?"

"Yes, it is Miss Hanson's son, not that it's any of your business, or mother's."

"What is he doing there? He's done with school!"

"So are you!"

"Mum isn't going to let you go alone, and you know it. Be grateful that I agreed to go, otherwise you wouldn't be going either."

"Shut up," she grumbled, then scowled a little bit. "We're not going to do anything. We're just gonna talk."

"Yeah, that's what he _told_ you," she mumbled.

"What's that noise?" Vanessa said, frowning a bit.

"Don't change the subject."

Vanessa shook her head and put her index finger against her mouth. "No, shh, be quiet, I'm serious. What is that noise? You don't hear it?"

Nicole was about to tell her sister to stop changing the subject again and try to keep her on the original topic, but that's when she heard it. It was an odd sort of whirring and grinding noise, something she had never heard before.

They both shared a look of confusion as the sound slowed to a stop.

"Hey, you two, if you don't hurry up you'll be late!" their mother called from the living room, breaking the silence, and making them jump.

Nicole scoffed a little. "It's just a dance. It's not like we have to be punctual," she grumbled.

"Says the girl who isn't meeting someone." Vanessa went behind her sister and started tugging at her sister's hair while she flipped it around and twisted and wrapped it around. Before long it was pulled into a hasty up-do. The entire time Nicole had been trying to bat away her Vanessa's hands half-heartedly, but by the end of it, she was glad her sister had stepped in because it looked all right. "Now put your makeup on and let's go."

Nicole put some makeup on quickly, then they left the bathroom and hurried into the living room.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive you?" their mother asked.

"Drive us to the school? It's only a ten minute walk," Vanessa said. Nicole knew her sister well enough to know that the only reason she didn't want their mother driving them was because she was meeting up with an older boy and didn't want her mum to see it.

"I don't know, it's a bit dark don't you think?"

"It's fine, Mum. It's only ten minutes," Vanessa said firmly.

"Well . . . I don't feel safe having you two walk around at night, even if it's just to the school." She bit her bottom lip, narrowing her grey eyes. "Hold on a second . . . You're going to take some pepper spray. Both of you."

"Mum! Pepper spray? Are you serious? Who carries pepper spray?" Vanessa whined, stomping her foot down.

"Nobody has to look in your purse except you. Besides, ever since I took that self-defence class, I've been thinking that we really should be more careful. We don't even lock our doors! Now, I've got one for each of us--you can put it on your keychain or in your purse or in your pocket--but remember, it can cause some minor irritation to you, too, if you spray it in an enclosed area . . . And it could make your attacker blind, so you should probably be absolutely sure he's trying to attack you and just not asking the time. I was thinking, maybe you two should start taking the class too."

"Maybe," Nicole said with a brief smile, although she really had no intention of taking it. She went and grabbed her purse and put the pepper spray in it. She noticed Vanessa scowling at it, then put it in her purse grudgingly.

"This is so stupid, nobody is going to attack us," Vanessa mumbled.

"What does carrying some protection hurt, Vanessa? Really," their mother pointed out, a little waspishly.

She scoffed and left the house, waving half-heartedly.

"See you later, Mum," Nicole said, going to leave, but then she felt her mum's hand on her arm.

Her mum let out a small sigh. "Look at for your sister, okay? And, er . . . If you see her maths teacher, um, well . . . Could you say hi for me?"

Nicole blinked a few times, feeling a little uncomfortable. "Do you, um . . . _like_ Mister Kendrick?"

Her mother just blushed a little bit and cleared her throat. "Never mind. Go and have fun at the dance. Catch up with your sister."

Nicole was only too glad to leave. It wasn't exactly her idea of fun listening to her mum hint at the fact she had feelings for one of her former teachers.

* * *

Nicole looked around at the dance floor. Although the music was loud and blaring, and actually quite popular, hardly anybody was dancing. There were a few groups dancing wildly, having a great time, but most of the students were just walking around, staring ahead of themselves. It was like most of them had grown tired of dancing, and having been to several dances before, she knew it took quite a long time to get people tired of dancing.

Nicole looked up at the big clock in the gymnasium, staring at it much longer than she needed to. Her and Vanessa had only shown up about thirty minutes late, and by the time they had shown, there had been a few groups that were already tired, just milling about, acting completely bored with the proceedings, although the music was just as good as it usually was, if not better. Within in the next half-hour, at least half the crowd had grown bored. It was like going to a dance occupied with zombies, emotionlessly milling about, ignoring the music that blared.

It didn't take long for the dancing kids to migrate into one big group around the middle, a group that Nicole was currently a part of. Judging by the passing comments from the others, she wasn't the only one who noticed the eerily neutral behaviour of most of the students. Or the fact that more and more seemed to be acting that way, the longer the dance progressed.

Mainly for the well-being of her sister, she'd noticed that Robert Hanson seemed to be getting more play than usual. It wasn't that he was unattractive or stupid, and he wasn't hated, but he most certainly wasn't very popular. It wasn't like most people went out of their way to make friends with the son of a history teacher who was known for her epically hard tests. Yet she had watched him move from dance partner to dance partner, and several times throughout the night, he had had a group of girls all dancing up against him at the same time. He must have been one hell of a dancer, because after he was done with each of the girls, they joined the too-tired-to-dance crowd, and would mill about, barely smiling or noticing anybody that passed. She also noticed that although they were "not dating" Vanessa seemed quite upset at the fact he was getting around on the dance floor, and spent most of the dance leaning up against a wall and pouting.

After Nicole danced through a few songs without a break, her legs weak and her lungs burning for breath, she excused herself from the dancing group and went over to the drinks table. She glanced back at her sister, noticing that Robert had finally gone over to her. He was standing closer than he ought to have and he kept brushing Vanessa's hair form her face, touching her cheek and leaning closer to her as he talked. Nicole had half a mind to go over and beat the daylights out of him for moving in on her sister like that, but knew that if she did, she would be in the wrong. There really wasn't anything wrong with him talking with her, after all.

She saw Miss Hanson talking with a few of her students, and she scoffed. She was probably telling them off for inappropriate dancing, completely disregarding the fact her son had been far more vulgar than anyone she was talking to.

"This dance is pretty dead, isn't it?" Mister Kendrick, her maths teacher, said behind her.

Nicole cleared her throat and finished the last of her glass of juice, feeling a little awkward, especially since she suspected her mother fancied him. It wasn't that surprising, though, seeing as he was the "good-looking" teacher. Nicole might have been inclined to say she found him attractive if he hadn't been her maths teacher the last two years of school. Nicole despised maths.

"Yeah, I noticed that." She poured more punch into her glass and took a sip out of it, eyeing the crowd, and at the few groups that were actually dancing that had migrated to the middle. "Wonder what for?" she asked, although it had been somewhat rhetorically considering she doubted he would know. She took a long drink from her glass.

"I'd figured someone has spiked the punch."

Nicole choked a bit on the liquid she had just swallowed and then started coughing. After a few mildly embarrassing seconds of her hacking away, she finally peered at her glass and then sniffed it.

"It's not really spiked, Nicole. I've been watching it like a hawk since the first student arrived. Besides, you're old enough to drink anyway. It's not like I'd have any reason to go snitch to your mum. I'm not even your teacher anymore."

Nicole chuckled airily. "Mum says hi, by the way."

"Does she?"

"Yup." Nicole shifted her weight onto her other foot uncomfortably.

Mister Kendrick smiled at her, his bright green eyes focusing on anything but her. "You should tell your mother to, er, call me. Or, well, if your mother thought it was all right, I could call her . . . I have your phone on file."

"Yeah, sure, Mum wouldn't mind," she muttered quickly, eyes searching for her sister and Robert as an excuse to leave and go talk to them, but it seemed they had left because she couldn't find them. There went her excuse for walking off. She worried about what they were getting up to, but mentally scolded herself. She was often too protective of her sister, and she was trying to break the habit.

"You're sure? Because I wouldn't want to . . . I mean, your father, he wouldn't think anything of it, would he?"

"My parents have been divorced since I was five, so I don't see how that has anything to do with this."

He nodded. "Oh. Well, that's . . . Yeah . . ."

"I've gotta go outside and cool off," she blurted. She wasn't really in the mood to talk about this.

He nodded and flashed a brief smile at her before running his hand through his black hair. She waved at him quickly and walked through the crowds, wanting to get out as quickly as possible. Most of the people ignored her, or barely even registered the fact she pushed past them, which was somewhat unnerving, seeing as she had accidentally made someone spill punch all over her white dress, and she just shrugged it off like it wasn't a big deal.

She made it into the dark hallways, shutting the large doors behind her. The large doors blocked off most of the music from the dance floor, so that she could only hear the bass and the muffled lyrics. Walking through the darkened hallways was extremely eerie. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she felt the familiar cold nausea of fear settling in her stomach. It wasn't too dark, seeing as there were streetlamps and the moon shining near the windows, so the hallways were bathed in a mixture of silver moonlight and golden lamplight, but very dimly, so that there were shadows still stretching across the hallway when she looked further down. Even though she could still vaguely hear the music from the gym, when she walked she could hear the squeaks of her chucks along the floor, and the quiet tap of her feet against the linoleum.

Even though her heart was in her throat, she told herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. She absolutely hated walking in the dark, but she knew that there was nothing in the halls to get her. SO she swallowed he fear and treaded onward. She listened to the muffled music fade away, and the further she walked, the more uneasy she felt.

Then there was a loud scream. Nicole nearly jumped out of her skin and shrieked a little, gasping right after and calming herself down, her heart thudding in her chest. Then she realized she could hear some sort of struggle. Along with some whimpers, there was scuffling and grunting, as well.

A part of her wanted to run off in the other direction and get as far away from the sound as possible. In fact, she even turned to run back into the dance, heart beating from fear. But another part of her knew that someone could possibly be in trouble, and that she would regret it if she didn't see what was going on. Trying to stifle her loud breaths, she reached into her purse (thank God she carried it with her, even when she danced) and pulled out the pepper spray he mother had given her. She found herself wondering if pepper spray was really going to help her, or if it would only anger the attacker into a blind, violent rage. Well, it was better than nothing. She looked down at her blue chucks and stepped as quickly as she could without being too loud, following the noise. It sounded like it was just around the corner. Her heart thudded harder and faster, and her lungs seemed to be working faster of their own volition.

She went around the corner, and her heart fell to the floor.

Her sister was on her back on the floor, with Robert straddling her, hands tight around her throat, squeezing and shaking her. Her sister was lifeless now, the scuffling coming entirely from him. Her hand was on the floor, her own pepper spray a few inches from her fingertips, her purse lying open, the contents scattered, only a metre away.

It was like an explosion went off inside of her. She charged at him and knocked him off of her sister, tackling him to the ground. The back of his head smacked the hard floor beneath them and he looked dazed for a second, so she decked him in the face.

She managed a few more hits before he shoved her off of him. The anger-based adrenaline was still in her, and she made to stand up, but then he kicked her in the side. She rolled over onto her stomach then hopped up, staggering, her side aching. She turned to look at her sister, see if she was all right, get her to run off, but then she felt her grab him and force her to look at him. She went to swing and punch him, realizing just then she was still clutching her purse in her right hand and the pepper spray in her left, knuckles white from how tightly she held onto them, but he leaned back, her fist barely missing his jaw, then he shoved her backwards.

Her head hit something hard and it made a loud clanging noise, and she realized she was against the lockers. She saw the animalistic rage in his eyes and she let out a scream when she went to move past him, but he grasped her throat and slammed her against the wall again. Black dots blinked and moved in front of her vision as he tightened his grip around her throat, cutting off her ability to breathe, her lungs burning, the pressure behind her eyes mounting . . .

His free hand slid up her shirt and, if possible, she panicked even more. She felt his cold palm slip under her bra . . . Instead of cupping her breast though, he placed it directly over her sternum . . .

Instead of wondering what the hell he was doing, she tried batting him away, only remembering she was clutching the pepper spray in her left hand after a few agonizing seconds of pain and fear. She stopped batting him and looked at it in realization for a second, then sprayed him directly in his eyes just as her vision was blurring to the point where all she saw was one dark smear.

He let out a harsh yell and let go of her, backing away, shrieking, clawing at his eyes. "What did you do, witch?" he demanded shrilly.

Nicole barely marvelled at the fact he actually used the word 'witch' instead of the more common insult it rhymed with before she felt to her knees, gasping. Although he had let go of her throat, it still felt closed off. Although she was gulping for air, all she managed was shallow breaths.

She saw her sister lying there, unmoving, her skin paler than it ought to be. She started crawling over to her when she felt a sharp pain in her side and she fell over. Although he was blinded by the pepper spray (or was he only partially blind? Nicole had never been sprayed before, and she wasn't keen on finding out what it was like) he had managed to kick her in the side.

She scrambled to her feet and switched the pepper spray from her left hand to her dominant right. "I'll--I'll spray you again, Robert!" she shouted, although it really only came out as a harsh, throaty whisper.

"What did you do? Tell me! What sort of witchcraft is this?" he yelled. The skin around his eyes was red and blotchy, obviously irritated. His eyes were bloodshot and his eyelids were swollen. He started coughing, and Nicole noticed the air did taste rather unpleasant and a sharp, tickling sensation went down her throat, and she started coughing. Her eyes were watering slightly as well. They started burning, although it was more of an irritable burn than a painful one.

Luckily for her, she had stepped away form the area where she'd first sprayed it, and so she hadn't got much of the bad symptoms. She stepped further away, watching him cough and hold his eyes, crying out.

As she was walking backwards, she glanced at her unconscious sister. Or at least, she hoped she was unconscious. She neared her, keeping her pepper spray aimed right at Robert. Before she could get much closer, he charged at her, and she started walking backwards and spraying at him again. He let out a harsh yell. "You witch! You've killed me!"

"What?"

He backhanded her and she stumbled, but managed to keep herself steady, her eyes burning even more so now that she had used it again.

He threw his head back and let out a strange gurgling sound, and a long, thin worm came out of his left nostril. Silvery wisps of light came pouring of his mouth and ears and nose, zipping through the air once they left him. Although it was hard to see because of the lack of proper light, Nicole could definitely see that. And she knew that wasn't normal.

"What the hell?" she managed hoarsely.

It jumped at her and she shrieked, dodging out of the way, only for it to smack to the ground. Six long, spindly legs popped out of its side and started crawling towards her just as Robert's body fell over. She shrieked and stomped on it. Although it squished underneath her foot, she stomped on it again, grinding it into the linoleum.

She ran towards her sister, kicking Robert's body aside, and knelt beside her. Her fingers found the pulse point in her throat, but there was nothing. She checked again, pressed harder, but there was still nothing. The fact that her eyes were wide open and unblinking wasn't a very comforting sign, either. Tears sprung to her eyes as she tilted her head, getting ready to perform CPR.

"What the hell?" came Miss Hanson's voice.

She spun around, still on her knees. "Miss Hanson! I--I didn't mean to--he killed her! He killed her! And then this thing came out of his . . ." she trailed off when Miss Hanson knelt beside the squished bug instead of the body of her son.

Miss Hanson looked at Nicole, her pale blue eyes widened, and she charged at Nicole.

* * *

**A/N--I have finished Bleeding Hearts, the first installment of my series (which is called Shadows on the Moon) and I will upload a chapter a day.**


	2. Chapter 2

Nicole barely managed to get up in time and run off, glancing back at her sister's body while she ran, leaving her purse, but clutching her bottle of pepper spray.

She ran, not daring to look back, too afraid of how close she would be. She darted in between hallways and through doors leading into connecting halls, tears running down her face, small sobs breaking through.

She had run off, leaving her sister's body on the ground. Did that make her a coward?

She turned around a corner and slammed right into someone. She backed up and pointed her pepper spray directly between his eyes. "Back off!" she screamed shrilly, which tore through her throat and caused her to hack. The fact she was coughing and had tears running down her face made it seem more pathetic than threatening. She didn't care much.

"Whoa, whoa now," the man said, stepping back and putting up both of his hands. "I'm not gonna hurt you!"

She didn't lower her arm, but sniffed a little, trying to stop the tears from flowing, so she could get a better look at him so that he wasn't blurry. She blinked the tears away, keeping it pointed right at his face. He was a rather unremarkable looking man, with short hair that looked like it had been shaved recently and was just barely growing back, and large ears. He was wearing all black, and she would have hazarded a guess at a leather coat, but seeing as it was dark, she couldn't be sure.

"What are you runnin' from?" he asked gently, stepping closer to her. She took a step back and glanced behind her, her breath constantly catching in her throat, and her whole body shaking.

She glanced back at him and noticed how badly her right hand was shaking. She used her left hand to grab her wrist and steady her arm. "I . . . I don't know, Miss Hanson?" she managed feebly, voice cracking.

"Who now?"

"She's . . . she's a teacher. Her son, he was . . . He killed my sister, and I fought him, and I sprayed him with this, and he--he started freaking out, bit more than I expected, called me a witch . . . This thing came out of his nose and I stomped on it, then Miss Hanson was--she was kneeling by the bug . . . He killed my sister, and I just left, I just ran off . . ."

"It's not your fault," came a second voice, and for the first time Nicole realized there was a girl standing beside him. She had long blonde hair, and big eyes, but other than that, she couldn't really notice any distinguishing features, other than her full lips.

"What?"

"What your name?" the man asked.

She looked at him. "Huh?"

"Your name," he said, a bit firmly.

"Nicole."

"Right, Nikki--"

"It's Nicole," she informed, a bit rudely, but she didn't much care. "Don't call me Nikki."

He nodded. "Right, Nicole, I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose--"

"Doctor?"

"Yeah, now listen, we--"

The doors behind her crashed open and she spun around, holding out her pepper spray. But it wasn't Miss Hanson--it was Vanessa.

She stuffed her bottle into her side pocket and grabbed Vanessa, pulling her into a tight hug. Tears erupted from her eyes as she squeezed her sister closer, half-sobbing into her shoulder. "I thought he killed you!" she rasped, clutching on the back of her sister's shirt, feeling her nails digging into her palm.

With strength she didn't remember her sister possessing, Vanessa grabbed her shoulders and spun her, so that her back was pressed against her chest. She had her arm around Nicole throat, almost like a sleeper-hold, but there wasn't any pressure.

"Let her go!" the Doctor shouted, reaching into his leather jacket and pulling out a gun. Nicole wasn't an expert in guns, but she didn't recognize the one he held at all. It almost looked like some prop from a sci-fi movie. Then again, she wasn't really in her right state of mind.

"Vanessa? What are you doing?" she asked, confused. "I don't think they're going to hurt you--it's Miss Hanson you've gotta worry about . . ."

"Stop your wittering," she spat, her mouth right next to her ear. Nicole shut her mouth. She hadn't really said much. Why was the hair on the back of her neck standing up? It was only Vanessa, after all. "You stupid child! You killed my son and you expect to get away with it?"

"What?" she muttered.

"It's not your sister! The Kiras, it's taken over her dead form! Your sister is dead!" the man stated rather frantically, pointing the gun at her.

"Do you really think you're going to shoot me, Doctor?" she said in a cold voice, one that shot chills up Nicole's spine. "Could you do it? Could you kill her too, to get to me?" Vanessa's head was partially behind Nicole, so she could feel her lips moving across her hair.

"Step away from her!" he ordered loudly.

"And let you shoot me? I think not!"

Nicole whimpered when she felt her sister's cold hand slip into her shirt and ride upwards, underneath her bra, and directly over her sternum. "This is wrong, stop it," she muttered quietly, feeling bile rise in her throat.

"Oh come on, Nicole, have a little fun," Vanessa whispered coldly.

"Vanessa, please . . . What are you doing? Stop . . ." She felt ill, like she might vomit . . .

"That isn't Vanessa!" the Doctor stated firmly.

"What does your heart," she said, pressing harder against her sternum, "tell you?" Suddenly, she felt her fear slowly start leaking from her, as if it drained away. The situation she was in wasn't creepy in any sense of the word . . . "Come on, sis, tell me, what do feel?"

Then Vanessa licked Nicole's cheek, her tongue sliding up her face.

There wasn't any fear anymore. Now there was just plain disgust.

She reached into her pocket and sprayed it backwards, tilting her head to the side and closing her eyes. She had no idea why she wasn't remotely afraid; not even the tiniest bit.

Vanessa screeched and shoved Nicole away form her. Nicole stumbled forward. Rose, as the Doctor had referred to her as, grabbed Nicole and pulled her out of the way. Just as Nicole turned around to see her sister, the Doctor pulled the trigger, but Vanessa ran at the Doctor blindly, knocking him over, so that he ended up shooting the wall instead, missing her by quite a bit.

The Doctor hit Vanessa with the butt of his gun.

"Hey! Leave her alone!" Nicole shouted, moving to attack him, but Rose grabbed her arm roughly.

The two of them struggled on the floor for control of the gun, and it shot off. Nicole felt a burning, sharp sensation across her arm, and something warm and wet started dripping along her skin. She glanced down and saw that her arm was bleeding.

"Get off me!" he yelled, then managed to throw her off of him.

She stood up, holding her eyes, which were red and swollen. She was clawing at them, still screaming, when the Doctor managed to shoot again, this time getting Vanessa right in the stomach. Which was a bit impressive, seeing as he was still on his back and holding it in a very awkward angle.

She let out a scream then clutched her stomach. Then she turned around and ran through the door quickly. The Doctor stood up, rearranging the gun in a more comfortable position in his hand, then moved to chase after her.

"Doctor!" Rose exclaimed, probably mostly to get his attention.

He turned to face them. "What?"

"You shot her!" she informed, pointing at the blood that was dripping across her skin. Her black shirt had ripped, revealing the bloodstained skin underneath, the black fabric sticky and wet.

"I did?" he asked, confused.

"Ya did," Nicole muttered, gesturing at the wound.

"I did?" he repeated, sounding even more confused.

"Er, yeah," Nicole said, pointing at her arm.

He walked over to her, held her arm gently, and looked at it. "I can fix that," he told her.

"Well yeah, you're a Doctor," Nicole mumbled, jerking her arm out of his grip and glaring at him. Normally she would be afraid to glare at a man holding a gun, a man who had just shot her sister, but for some reason, she wasn't. She didn't have an ounce of fear in her.

"You're a bit calm considerin' what just happened, Nikki."

She scoffed again. "Don't call me Nikki."

"Right, yeah. Aren't you scared? The fact I'm wavin' a big gun around doesn't unnerve you at all?"

"No," she said, and a part of her realized just how stupid that was. "That's really strange, isn't it? I mean, I was scared out of my mind just walking down a dark hallway a few minutes ago; you'd think this would frighten me."

"She's not dead then. Not yet. Come on." With that, he turned and rushed through the door, Rose and Nicole following him, Nicole feeling angry with him for shooting her sister, but oddly enough . . . Not as much as she should have been.

* * *

She ran down the hallway, clutching her stomach, feeling the emotions leave her body as the blood did. She had figured that Nicole wouldn't have been able to attack her own sister . . . Then again, she had taken all of the fear from her. Perhaps she should have taken the disgust instead; after all, it was that that made Nicole spray her with that abominable potion of hers. The potion that had obviously killed her son, and was obviously killing her. That, and the gunshot wound.

Her eyes burned like they had never burned before, She'd never known poison such as this--never known her eyes to itch and sting and burn like fire as they did now. Her skin burned as well, and itched, and her throat seized up, and it burned too, and she could barely see where she was going. She whimpered and moaned in pain, clawing at her eyes with one hand, covering her gunshot wound in the other.

"Vanessa? Is that you?" came the voice of Mister Kendrick. She'd had a few conversations with him.

"Yes," she called, turning to where the voice had sounded.

Had she not lost all of the emotions she'd stolen just recently, she would have been afraid for her life. Or she may have been gleeful at someone arriving. But alas, she had no emotion--the sign that the very last one had left her.

"I saw Nicole leave, I was wondering if you had seen her, she seemed a bit--" She blinked through the burning pain to see that he was quite close to her. She could feel the fear coming off of him in waves. "Oh my God, what happened? Were you shot?" He came towards her, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking down at her.

"Are you afraid?" she asked, although she knew that he was.

"What?"

Although she preferred to use female humans, she'd noticed how attractive he was, and she could use that for her goals. "Hold onto it," she whispered, then held his throat, slamming him against the wall, squeezing the life out of him.

She left Vanessa's body the way she had gone in, through her nostril, sucking the fear out of him so that she absorbed it as he died while she crawled into his body, listening to Vanessa's fall to the ground.

Her vision restored immediately as the fear hit her. She stared down at her former body, brushing off her clothes, breathing rapidly, scared out of her mind. She relished the feeling.

The Doctor came running around the corner not a moment later, holding his gun, with Rose and Nicole following. "She was stumbling, and she just fell over, I swear!" she exclaimed, shocked at hearing the manly voice issuing form her mouth.

The Doctor thrust the gun into his jacket and she pretended to have not noticed is was out in the first place. She didn't want to cause any problems by bringing attention to it. "She died?" he asked, looking at her intently.

Faking the fear was easy, since it was the only emotion she had at the moment. "Yes! I--I just saw her stumbling--I tried to help her--Nicole, I swear, I really tried . . ."

Nicole stumbled forward, clutching her bloody arm, and fell to her knees beside Vanessa's body.

"Go," the Doctor ordered, pointing at her, not even suspecting her for a moment. "Call the police. Now."

She obeyed, although she would have loved to feed off of the girls' obvious sorrow and pain. However, it would not be wise to do so with the Doctor present, and so she ran off.

She might be the last one of her kind, but be damned if she wasn't going to keep it that way.

Although, of course, the first thing she was going to have to do was learn to run with a penis dangling between her legs. _That_ was a sensation she'd never felt before.

* * *

"The police and an ambulance should be here soon," the Doctor said, and Nicole could hear the slight waver in his voice and the fact he was shuffling.

She was still kneeling beside her sister's body. She was paler than normal with a grey tinge to her skin, with the exception of the area surrounding her eyes, which was swollen and red, with barely-bleeding scratch marks around it. Her eyes were partially opened--or at least, as opened as they could be, seeing as her lids were swollen, and her eyes were bloodshot and blank of any expression. Her spaghetti stringed shirt was stained with blood, the contrast between the white and crimson startling, especially in the weak light, so that the blood nearly looked black. She had always heard people say that the dead looked peaceful, and they certainly did in coffins. But her sister looked anything but. She just looked dead. Gone.

It was like there was a gaping hole in her chest, and the only thing she could think of was the meaningless conversation they'd had on the way to the dance. And how she would never be able to talk about unimportant things and laugh with her sister again.

"What's that you got there? In your hand? What you sprayed her with?" the Doctor asked.

Nicole glanced upwards at him, frowning. She was a little put off at his behaviour. Her sister was dead, and he was asking stupid questions. Didn't he care? "It's just pepper spray," she answered dully, sniffing a little.

"That's fantastic . . . The Kiras thought it was dyin' because it never felt pain before . . . Now that it's dead, though, I s'pose all the emotions went back to their owners. We don't have to worry about their ship now, Rose."

"Doctor . . . Um, her sister's dead. We could be a bit more sympathetic, yeah?"

The Doctor blinked his big, light blue eyes like he'd just thought of that, then nodded. "Right. Yeah. Sorry, Nikki."

"It's Nicole," she muttered dully, mostly out of habit, just as she looked back down at her sister.

"I'm sorry. If there was anything I could do . . ."

"Why? Why did they come here? Why did they . . . Kill her?" she asked, reaching forward to touch her sister's pale face, but she hesitated, fingers a few inches from the dead body. She pulled her hand back slowly, sniffling, her breath catching in her throat. It didn't seem right or real . . . Like at any moment, Vanessa would sit up and laugh, saying it was some cruel, practical joke.

"The Kiras are a race of aliens that don't have feelings. Their entire race was killed in a war, 'cause they didn't care about anything enough to live, and they weren't scared of death. Plus, well, you saw what they looked like. Those two were the last ones left. So they . . . They possess other aliens, and then they . . . Well, they steal emotions. The can keep it inside them until it wears off and returns to the original owner, or if they die or get mortally wounded, it'll leave their bodies. There's this box that they put it in so they can use it later, like some sort of drug--but once it's there, it can never return to the original owner. That person'll will never feel that emotion again. They got addicted to it, and you humans are glutton for emotion, so that's why they come here."

"Us humans." She let out a small, humourless laugh. "As if you aren't," she scoffed, tilting her head to the side, and staring at her sister's chest, waiting for it to rise. It didn't.

"I'm not," he said, kneeling down beside her, and giving her a sympathetic look.

"So what?" she snapped, not believing him. "You just go through space fighting aliens. Whatever." She shook her head. She could have smacked him for saying such bullocks during that time.

"I travel through time, too, helpin' people. That's why we stopped here."

"So you could what? Do nothing while my sister dies? Just so some alien could posses her or whatever? Good job," she spat.

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, then he shook his head and looked away.

"Doctor, we should probably leave her alone," Rose said quietly, as if Nicole wasn't right there to hear her.

The Doctor stood, then he put a hand on her shoulder. Nicole pulled her shoulder out of his hand and scooted away from him and closer to her sister while she scoffed. "I'm sorry, Nicole."

She said nothing.

She heard them walk away while she thought over what he'd just said, trying to apply it the situation that had just happened. Vanessa--or the Kiras possessing Vanessa anyway--had taken away her fear, hoping to get Nicole to trust her. So she could what? Kill her? Possess her? For killing her son. Just because he'd never felt that pain before, just because he'd never been afraid before, and thought he was dying so he left his host's body. And this Doctor came to save them, and he couldn't even manage to save her sister. He may have saved the rest of the school by shooting the last host, but to Nicole, it didn't matter. The only person she really cared about at the moment was lying in front of her, dead. What was the point of being able to travel through space and time fighting aliens if he couldn't even--

Wait. Time? He could travel through time?

She stood up and ran down the hall they'd walked down, stuffing her pepper spray back into her pocket, racing through the halls. When she exited the school, she saw them walking towards an old blue police box she didn't ever remember being that close to the school. Sirens were sounding in the air from faraway, just so she could barely hear them, and she wiped the tears from her face, hoping, praying that she was right . . .

She started running towards them. "Doctor! Rose! Wait!" she yelled, waving her arms, heart beating in her chest. She realized just then he'd never told her his last name.

They both turned around. "What? Did you need something? Because I don't really like being seen when police are about, you know."

She slowed to a stop in front of them. "You can travel through time! You just said so!"

"Oh, no," the Doctor muttered.

"No, you said that you could! If I'm going to believe alien worms with creepy spider legs just popped out of my sister's nose, I'm going to believe that. Were you lying to me?"

"No, I wasn't lying. But . . . But you don't understand--"

"Can't we just go back in time? Save my sister? I mean, stop Robert--or the Kiras in Robert--from strangling her, and just shoot him or something?" she asked, standing right in front of him, looking up into his face eagerly.

"No," he said, his blue eyes looking directly into hers seriously.

"What?"

"I can't cross my own timeline. Well, I could, but it would be very bad. And if you were to see yourself or touch yourself, trust me, it would create a paradox, and you don't want to do that."

She narrowed her eyes at him angrily. "Then what's the bloody point of being able to go through time if you can't do a bloody thing about it?" she screamed at him, stamping her feet.

"I'm sorry," he said, then turned around, walking closer to the blue police box.

"You--you stupid git!" she shrieked shrilly, not caring that she was acting like a petulant child. "What good are you, then, huh? Huh?"

Rose looked at her sympathetically, but followed the Doctor, bowing her head.

"What's the point? She's dead! Don't you even care? You don't even care! You selfish, stupid little--"

He spun around and glared at her. "I said I was sorry, all right? Now get back in there and deal with it! I'm sorry! I wish I could do more, but I can't!" Then he stepped into the box along with Rose, and he stood in the doorframe, looking at her. She glared right back at him. "If I could, I would. But I can't. And you can't mention this to anyone, okay? It would only make you look like a lunatic." Then he slammed the door shut.

Nicole glared at the box, then let out a loud yell, then turned around and started walking towards the school, breath shaky and tears dripping down her face, her body feeling weak. She heard a loud whirring and grinding noise that she recognized form earlier, and she spun around to see the blue police box slowly fading away.

The sirens were louder now and the lights were flashing around her. The police were there.

And it finally hit her. Her sister was actually, really dead, and it was permanent. She held her face in her hands, and cried.


	3. Chapter 3

_Three Years Later_

Nicole walked down the aisle, picking up a box or cereal and looking it over. "Mum, is this what you wanted?" she asked. She looked at her mother, who had on an old dress with some sandals, and her hair hung past her shoulders. She turned dull, lifeless eyes towards Nicole, and tilted her head a bit. Nicole would have said she looked confused if not for the fact she looked completely void of expression. "Is the box you wanted?" she repeated louder.

"Sure," her mum said, then began to totter off.

Nicole put it in the cart and pushed alongside her mother as they began to leave the aisle. She grabbed her arm to prevent her from walking right into someone. "Mum you gotta pay attention, remember? I've gotta get off to work soon. If you had told me you wanted cereal last night, we wouldn't be rushed for time, would we?" she said, her voice taking on a slight edge. Her mum just nodded and started walking off again, this time walking right in front of a person's cart and getting rammed in the side because of it.

"Watch where you're going!" the girl pushing the cart exclaimed. Her mother just barely glanced at her and stepped away, indicating with a sweep of her hand for the girl to move on, in a polite manner, but because of her lack of expression it came off as a bit sardonic. Nicole groaned. It was too early in the morning to be dealing with this. "Excuse me, then! What's your problem? Can't you see there are people walkin', huh? You stupid lump." Then she pushed her cart past them, muttering under her breath.

Because the girl had raised her voice a bit, they had captured the attention of several people surrounding them. Nicole flashed a smile then grabbed her mum's arm. Out of all the people she could have ran into, why did it have to be a girl who was in an irritable mood? "You hold onto the cart, okay? Don't leave its side," she ordered irritably. She felt a bit guilty for getting irritated at her mother's behaviour because it wasn't anything she could control, but it was still frustrating.

She glanced at the people still staring at them, feeling her cheeks burn a little. How must it look to have Nicole ordering her mother about like a child. If only they knew that she also had to dress her mother and comb her hair and remind her to take a bath and even bathe her at times, whenever her stepfather (as much as she hated referring to him as that) forgot to do it. Which was more often than not. It wasn't that her mother needed taking care of, it wasn't like her mother didn't understand all of these things, it was just that her mother didn't care about any of these things. She wasn't stupid. But she didn't care about hygiene. She didn't care about looking good. She didn't see the point of it. She didn't care about anything.

One of the people looking at her stuck out more than the rest, mainly because he was a bit oddly dressed. It seemed weird to be wearing a suit just to go shopping. It was a rather nice blue suit at that. But the oddest thing was that he was wearing red chucks. The other people looked away and acted like they hadn't been staring at her at all, embarrassed to be caught, but he didn't even try to hide the fact. Their eyes met and he put his hands in his pockets, keeping a very stoic expression.

She blinked and shook her head, pushing her cart in the opposite direction. "Come on, Mum, let's go. We're done shopping."

Nicole sat at the breakfast table, lazily stirring the milk in her bowl with her spoon. She held her chin in her hand, watching her mother sit on the couch, watching the television. At least her mother hadn't woken her up early to go shopping for cereal like she had yesterday. She wasn't sure if she could handle doing that two days in a row.

"You don't seem like you're in a very happy mood," Mister Kendrick said while he walked into the living room, running his hand through his black hair.

She scoffed. Even if her mother had married him, he would still always be Mister Kendrick, the good-looking maths teacher. However, she found she liked him more back when he was just that--the maths teacher. And she hadn't even really liked him too much then. He was selfish and crude, and treated both her and her mother like stray cats.

"I'm tired. And I'm worried about one of my students--Katie Langston."

_"Your_ student," he muttered with a scoff, giving her a patronizing look. "Last I checked, you were just a temp."

"Yeah, for six months. Excuse me if I grow partial," she said coolly, watching him as he walked over to the counter and poured himself a glass of orange juice. "Is she one of yours? You know, one of the ones you _fuck."_ She didn't try to hide the acidic note in her voice at all, and waited to see if he reacted in any way.

He turned to face her and smirked. She waited for him to answer her question, but all he did was raise his eyebrows. "What about her?"

"She's a good student. Or at least, she has been so far. But she didn't do the sleep and dreams project. And when I told her she was failing my class, she didn't even . . . care. She just acted like it wasn't a big deal. She wasn't sad or angry or . . . or anything. She just nodded and walked out."

"Maybe she doesn't care about psychology. Or maybe she just doesn't like you," she said, sipping his orange juice while he leaned against the counter.

"Some of her other teachers have noticed too. Noticed that she doesn't seem interested. In anything. She just sits there. Stares off into space. When she even shows up to class. Maybe she has problems at home or something."

"Hmm." She waited for him to say something else, but he just kept drinking his orange juice.

Nicole let out a sigh, then picked up her bowl and drank the last of the milk in her bowl. "Make sure Mum takes her medication before you leave."

"I'm not the one who's supposed to be taking care of her. That's you, remember? Besides, it's obvious the medication isn't working."

Nicole scoffed and walked over to the sink, putting the bowl in it. She stood right in front of him, the two of them glaring at each other, while she reached behind him and plucked the medication off of the shelf he stood in front of. He smirked at her, his green eyes focusing on her through his lashes. She grabbed his glass of orange juice and pulled it out of his hand.

She went to walk off but he grabbed both of her wrists, jerking her closer to his face, so that their noses were almost touching. For some reason, she was afraid. The way he looked at her frightened her, and it didn't help that he was clutching her wrists so tightly that her fingertips were numb. Her breath shook and her heart started pounding faster in her chest. He tilted his head to the side, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, or even hit her, and her stomach churned in disgust as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Then he let go of her hands and sneered.

Even though he had let go of her, she was still shaking.

She walked over to her mother, her breath catching in her throat. "Mum," she said, to get her attention, and she tried to pretend that she didn't hear how her voice squeaked slightly. Her mother looked at her, blinking nonchalantly, blue eyes emotionless, as always. "Time to take your medication."

She watched her mother take two pills and set the bottle on the coffee table beside the couch, and then she handed over the glass of orange juice, noticing that her hand was shaking. Her mother took the glass from her and drank from it.

Nicole left, grabbing her briefcase, which she kept her lesson plans and essays in, and headed for the door.

"Say hi to Katie for me," he said coolly, and she looked over her shoulder to see him smiling in what would have been a charming way, except for some reason it really unnerved her.

She left the house, feeling uneasy. She shut the door firmly behind her. She hurried down the sidewalk, holding her briefcase closer to her body, and kept looking over her shoulder, as if afraid that he was going to come out and follow her, although she had no idea why that idea should bother her. It wasn't like he had sex with her like he did with plenty of his other students. Perhaps it was because of her less-than-favourable opinion of him, but it really wouldn't surprise her if he started coming on to her next.

However, she mostly doubted it. Mister Kendrick (she refused to call him anything except that) seemed to despise her. It wasn't like they had ever gotten along even before he started dating her mum, but ever since that night in the school, it was like he went out of his way to be mean. He'd made it quite plain he didn't like her. He probably blamed her for Vanessa's death or something. He had always liked Vanessa. Knowing what he did with some of his students, she found herself wondering if he had ever taken advantage of her sister. She would never know though, because none of the girls ever admitted that it happened, he somehow managed to convince them to keep their mouths shut, so she figured that he had a way of keeping Vanessa's mouth shut to . . . Even if she were still alive . . . In fact, the only reason she even knew he was shagging his students was because she had walked in on him. After that, he had been more careful. Much to her displeasure, because she would have liked to have someone else walk in on them, because no one would take her word against his and all the victims who denied it.

Thinking about him made her nervous, especially since she couldn't get her mind off of what had just happened. What was up with him holding her wrists like that? All tilting his head and looking at her hungrily? That had been quite frightening.

She hurried across the street when there were no cars coming, grimacing every time her suitcase banged against the side of her legs. Mister Kendrick would always drive to the school, which was quite stupid in her opinion since it was a ten minute walk and he always complained about gas.

She was near the school, thinking about anything but the actual psychology class she was supposed to teach, when she saw it. She slowed to a stop and stared at it, not quite sure if she was seeing things or not. It was the blue police box . . . The one she'd seen the Doctor leave in.

Without wondering about whether it was good or bad that the Doctor was in town again, she walked right up to it and started knocking on it. "Doctor?" she called softly. When there was no sign of anyone coming to open the door, she pressed her ear up against the door, then knocked on it a few more times.

After a few seconds, she grabbed the door handle to open it, but it was locked. She jerked on it a few more times, knocking with her other hand.

"What're doin'?" came a voice from behind her.

She spun around, and recognized the guy from the store that had been staring at her the day before. Today he was wearing a brown pinstriped suit, but he was still wearing chucks. He had large brown eyes and messy, but cute, brown hair. "Um . . ."

Suddenly his brown eyes lit up and he grinned at her. "Nicole!" he exclaimed, sounding genuinely excited, and rather pleased. She really couldn't remember anyone looking at her with as much surprise and happiness. It was almost like meeting an old friend unexpectedly, although she had no idea why he was acting that way seeing as the only time she'd seen him was at the store. Or at least, to her recollection.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" she asked, looking him over. "You were following me yesterday morning. Or, well, staring at me."

He was still grinning at her, looking her up and down, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Hmm?" Then he blinked and his head reeled back, almost as if a switch had been turned on. "Oh, right. Yeah. No, no, you don't know me. Well, not really. I'm, er, I'm a substitute teacher at the school. History. Today's my second day. You work there too."

"Well, not really. Just substituting, like you. Did the history teacher disappear too?"

"Hmm? No. He won a trip to Jamaica."

"Oh . . . Oh yeah, I remember now . . . He said he didn't even enter any contests."

He shrugged. "Huh, odd." He then turned his focus to the blue police box. "So what were you doing, assaulting this here box?"

"Er, I was . . . Trying to get in, obviously."

He looked back at her, and she thought he looked amused, but she had no idea as to why he would be. "And why would you do that?"

She shrugged. Lying had never really been one of her talents. "To, er . . . See what it looked like on the inside. Never seen one before. But it's locked, so . . ."

"Imagine it looks like a phone booth, probably. But there's no real need for these anymore."

She nodded and shifted her weight onto her other foot, then stepped away from the police box, clearing her throat awkwardly. "Right, yeah, well . . . So, er, who're you? You know my name, but . . ."

"Oh! Oh, sorry. Smith. John Smith." She stuck out his hand and she shook it briefly. "So, ya wanna head off to the school or what?" He raised his eyebrows and rocked on his heels a bit.

"Yeah, sure."

He just smiled and then fell into step beside her as she started off to the school.

Nicole sat at the table in the teacher's lounge that was against the wall, and she sat entirely alone. It wasn't that Nicole was antisocial; it was that Mister Kendrick was very social, and highly liked, and sat at a table with all the other teachers and they all laughed at everything he said. She wanted nothing to do with the prat--she had enough of him at home--and so she sat at the table that he didn't sit in. Which, incidentally, meant she was sitting by herself, since everybody else was sitting by him.

So she calmly ate her lunch by herself. Until someone pulled out a chair and sat in front of her. "Hope you don't mind me sitting here?" John said, flashing her a grin that made it impossible for her to deny him. Besides, she was lonely sitting there by herself.

"Yeah, go ahead. Sure you don't want to join the masses?"

He glanced over at the other table, which had a large group surrounding Mister Kendrick. They were laughing at something he said. Whenever he talked he got into their personal space and touched their shoulders and arms, but nobody really seemed to care. John shook his head. "Nah, never really been one to like crowds. He seems to be popular."

"Yep."

"But you don't like him?"

"Nope."

"Why's that?"

"He's an egotistical prat, that's why. Goes around like he's a bloody king. Thinks he's so special. I get enough of it at home; why should I have to deal with it here?" At his confused look, she sighed. "My mum married him. Like, two years ago."

He nodded knowingly. "Ah. So he's your stepfather then? Your step-dad is a _maths_ teacher? I can only imagine what that must be like."

She scoffed. "I refuse to call him that. But yeah, I suppose he is."

"So how long have you been temping, then? The original teacher off in Jamaica too?"

"I've been here for six months."

His look of shock was almost comical. "Really? Off in Jamaica for six months? Must be really great there, then. Though, of course, I think Barcelona's better, but I suppose it's only a matter of opinion. Maybe I'll get to teach here for a long time, too. I was always interested in history. Fascinating subject, I think."

"What? You've been to Jamaica? _And_ Barcelona?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, several times."

"Did you like it?"

"Well, really depends on the time I went. So you get paid then?"

"Barely," she said, smiling at him.

He was staring at her intensely, his brown eyes wide, leaning forwards slightly with a cute little half-smile on his face. He was actually, genuinely interested in what she had to say. She couldn't really remember the last time anybody had truly paid attention to her. Her mother never paid attention to anything anymore, she was just some hollow shell of who she used to be, and Mister Kendrick only paid attention to her long enough to insult her, or order her about. It was a nice change.

"Sounds about right. So really, where'd the original teacher go, then?" he joked, grinning while he did so.

Nicole sighed and shrugged. "No one knows. She just disappeared. Not the only person who has, though. Lots of girls go missing here."

"Yeah, I saw that. That's a bit weird, to have so many people missing from one town."

"You'd think so . . ." Nicole had thought it was weird too, to have so many people missing. But every time she mentioned to anyone, they'd change the subject. But now that she saw the blue box that the Doctor had left in, she knew for a fact that it was. "Listen, um . . . By that box, the police box, did you see anyone?"

"I saw you."

"No, I meant . . . Um, a man. He, uh . . . Well, the last time I saw him, he had short hair. He wasn't as tall as you, and he had blue eyes. And weird ears. Did you see him walking around that box? Or even leave it? Go inside?"

He was quiet for a moment, as if thinking deeply about something. Then he shook his head. "Didn't see him."

"Oh. Well. Oh! There's this girl, her name was, um . . . Rose, yes, and she was pretty, she had blonde hair, and she had a full mouth. You didn't see her either?" she asked, leaning forward, putting her elbows on the table. She didn't want to seem too eager, so she tried to keep her voice quiet and steady. But she could hear a bit of need in her voice, and she hoped it didn't worry John.

His face fell slightly, and he shook his head. "No. I didn't see anyone." His sudden seriousness bothered her. Then he grinned again, the seriousness gone.. "'Cept you. Bangin' on the door, trying to get in."

She nodded, looking him over. He seemed so fascinated by everything she said, like he actually wanted to get to know her. "Oh, well . . . Thanks. That's good. Thanks." She smiled briefly at him.

"The woman you were with, at the store--that was your mother?"

She nodded, and felt rather awkward. She didn't really want to talk about her mother. "Yes, that was. She's got, um, a problem. Well, uh, the doctors can't really explain it. It's just parts of her brain . . . don't work. Like the amygdala, for instance. They just . . . deadened, somehow. They did some tests and scans and . . . Um, she can't feel emotion. At all. It was like one day, she woke up, and felt nothing. She stopped going to work, and when she did go, she wasn't really putting forth any effort. So they had to let her go."

"So she woke up one day, and there was nothing? Overnight?"

Nicole blinked a few times. She had never really been great at lying, but she wasn't going to tell him the truth about this. No way. It would only make her feel worse. "Yep. Overnight. She went from normal, to nothing."

She could tell by his facial expression that he didn't believe her. He raised an eyebrow at her and looked her over. For a few seconds she thought he was going to call her on it, but thankfully, he didn't. He just nodded. "That's too bad."

She nodded. They both knew she wasn't being honest, and she had a suspicion that he knew she was aware of the fact they both realized she was lying. Thankfully, though, he didn't say anything to acknowledge it, and neither did she. "Yeah, well . . . There's nothing we can do now. Her medication isn't working, so it doesn't matter."

"But it does matter," he said, his voice deeper than it had been, his brown eyes completely serious. He reached forward and held her hand, his gaze locking onto hers, something in them preventing her from looking away. "You love your mother, yes?" She barely nodded. "It matters when you look in her eyes, and you see that she doesn't love you back."

She shook her head and pulled her hand out of his. "It doesn't mean anything. It's not her fault. It's her disease. I know that. I'm not . . . I'm not daft."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's fine." It was true, Nicole knew that. Her mother really couldn't help not loving her daughter. Oddly, though, a part of her really did care. So maybe she was lying. But it didn't matter whether or not she was, because it sounded believable. Which was strange, because she was a horrible liar. Not that she was lying this time.

He nodded slowly, his eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed ever so slightly. "Right . . . Okay." Then he smiled at her, although it didn't really reach his eyes. "So, what are you doing later? Gotta take care of your mum? Or can you take some time off for a drink? With me?"

She stared at him, unsure of what he was asking for. A drink was, after all, just a drink. She hadn't been on a date since before Vanessa died, and even then, it wasn't like she was extremely popular with the guys. She wasn't a complete loser, she had had boyfriends before, but none of them really lasted very long, or had much of a spark to begin with. So she wasn't quite sure what he was implying.

"Oh, what, like a date?" she blurted. She suddenly felt stupid afterwards.

"Well, I mean, not like a--I mean, if you don't want to, that's all right--but if it's all right with you, it could be. It's just a drink, it's not like we're--we're--No, no, I didn't mean it like--" he rambled, blinking a few times, looking around nervously. "Haha, sorry--bit nervous--pretty girl, you know--"

"Pretty girl. Right," she muttered, shifting in her seat uneasily.

"You nervous? At all?" he asked, staring at her deeply.

She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. She furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I don't know."

He looked at her like she had admitted she was an alien of some kind. "How can you not know if you're nervous?"

"I just . . . don't know. I mean, I don't even really know you. Is it a date, though? Or is it just . . . A friendly thing?"

"Isn't that the point of a drink, though? To see if it's a date or a friend thing? Getting a drink is the non-date date, yeah? Well, I mean, unless you want it to be a non-non-date, you know, a date-date, without the non, but I mean, I was just--you know, like a--I didn't mean for it to be that way. But yeah, if you don't want to, or--or you've gotta help your mum, or if you want to think of some random excuse to say no but in a way so that you don't hurt my feelings, that's all right."

She almost laughed at his behaviour, but she didn't want to embarrass him, so she bit back her chuckles. She couldn't remember the last time someone got nervous around her. "Well, I'll tell you what. I've gotta go shopping with my mum after I get home. You can come along if you want, it should only take a few minutes, and then I'll drop her off home, and then we can go out for, um, a drink. Or you could just go home and I can pick you up after I'm done."

"Nah, it's fine. I'll just go shopping with you. That'll be great. I could meet your mum and, well, I've already met Mister Kendrick, and oh, I could meet Vanessa too," he said, brightly, grinning so that she could see his teeth.

It was like she was stabbed in the chest. She blinked a few times. "What? That's--that's not funny."

"What's not funny? Isn't she your sister? Mister Kendrick said the blue eyes were hereditary--that you and your mum and Vanessa had them, too. That's what he said."

She glared at Mister Kendrick, but he obviously didn't catch her dirty look seeing as he was busy talking with the crowd of teachers. She then turned back to John. "Um . . . my sister died, three years ago. That's, um, the doctors think that's part of the reason my mum has her problem."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

A part of her wanted to get up and leave, almost like he had purposely offended her, but she realized that he had no way of knowing, and so she just shrugged. "It's okay, you didn't know." She smiled reassuringly at him. Of course she was upset over the fact her mentioned it, but she didn't want to get angry at him for something that wasn't his fault. However, she did get angry at Mister Kendrick. Most of the time, she somehow found a way to blame him. Even when it really had nothing to do with him. But she always found a way to link her displeasure to him, even if indirectly.

He furrowed his eyebrows and studied her face. It was almost unnerving, but then he just nodded, as if accepting what she said. "Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

"Of course not. It's just a question." She smiled, and thought back to that night, remembering the Doctor, wishing that he had told her his last name. She obviously never told people about him, mainly because she didn't want people thinking she was a lunatic, but also because he'd asked her not to. Besides, she didn't know his last name, so if they had met him, they wouldn't know it was him because she didn't exactly know his full name.

So she decided to tell John the same thing she told the police. "Well, um, turns out that Miss Hanson and her son were, ah, you know . . . Taking advantage of girls. Robert, er, strangled my sister but she got him with pepper spray, and he took it form her and got her, and he shot her. She managed to run off for a bit, but she died. He died of a pepper spray allergy or somethin'. Miss Hanson, apparently, just died. They think maybe she had an allergy to it as well, and you know how that stuff lingers in halls? They think she picked it up from there. I saw some of it--saw the bit with Robert--oh, then some guy, um, he heard a commotion form outside and he came in, saw that I was in trouble, and tried to help me find my attackers and whatnot. But he was too late. Mister Kendrick found my sister's body and called the cops."

Although she wasn't very good at lying, this one sounded realistic enough, if not bland and emotionless. She'd told the story so many times when it first happened it didn't really seem to affect her. She was sure she would actually get emotional if she had to tell people the truth. But this version was just some story, some silly story that wasn't even real.

"I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose a loved one."

She smiled at him. "Yeah. Well."

"Sorry for bringing it up. You wanna talk about something else?"

"No, it's fine. Really. There's just not anything else to say about it."

"You don't wanna talk about how it makes you feel or anything? 'Cause I can listen. You, being a psychology temp, should know how important listening is."

As much as she would have loved to get what she felt off of he chest, she didn't exactly know him very well, and she couldn't just go and blab about aliens to him without sounding completely insane. Of course everybody knew about aliens by now, but it wasn't like she wanted people thinking she was a nutter. Even though she knew most people believed in aliens now (how could they not?) she still felt a little weird. She didn't want to tell anyone that her sister had been possessed. She didn't want to admit that he sister had been trying to kill her. That she had sprayed her sister with pepper spray.

"It was three years ago. It's all over and done with now. I'm fine."

He nodded slowly. "Ah. Well. Good for you, then."

"Yep."

He winked at her and she found herself smiling at that. "So I'll see you after school then?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Good." He then winked at her again and got up off of the table.

She felt excited, for the first time in a long time, and she found that she actually was a bit nervous. She couldn't remember the last time she had been on a non-date, or a date, or even just a friendly drink, she just knew that it had been quite awhile before Vanessa's death. After that she had never got around to it because she was either dealing with depression or her mother.

She watched as Mister John Smith left the teacher's lounge, glancing back at her before he shut the door behind him. She couldn't help but smile, and she felt her cheeks burn slightly. He was quite cute. In fact, he was cuter than any guy she had ever gone on a date with before, by far. The part of her that had low self-esteem wondered what on earth he would want with a plain girl like her, and looked a bit older than her, but she didn't care about things like that.

She saw Mister Kendrick glaring at her, and she smirked at him, before turning back to her lunch.

A/N--yeah, him asking her out on a date? Not what it seems.


	4. Chapter 4

Nicole opened the door to her house and let John in first. He walked slowly, but comfortably, sticking his hands into the pockets of his suit, which made his trench coat flare out a bit (which she had never seen him wear before, but she thought it looked rather good with the brown pinstriped suit he was wearing) and looking at everything he walked past. He was quite a good conversationalist, and Nicole found herself talking more to him than she had talked at all for the past three years. He seemed quite interested in her--so interested, in fact, it unnerved her. She couldn't fathom why anyone would be that interested, but she figured it was just because not very many people had been recently. In fact, after she got over the uneasiness, she found she actually liked it. She asked him questions about his life and interests, and she found that he would often ramble on, but not in an annoying way. In fact, she found it cute.

She followed him into the house, and saw that he was standing in the middle of the living room with his legs spread while he swayed, eyes roving the walls and furniture, as if trying to memorize every little detail.

"Mum, this is John Smith," she said, grabbing her mum's attention and then nodding in his direction. "John, this is my mum, Sharon."

"Hello, Sharon," he greeted jovially, grabbing her hand and shaking it. "Heard a lot about you."

She smiled blandly in return, then extracted her hand from his. "Hi," she said, blinking.

"And you already know him," she said, gesturing towards Mister Kendrick, who was standing in the kitchen and looking at the both of them.

"Hello again," he said, smiling at him.

Mister Kendrick smiled back. "John. Robbing the cradle a bit, eh?"

"Tch, you're the one to talk," Nicole snapped.

That got a confused look from John, and Mister Kendrick laughed loudly. "That's our little joke. I'm two years older than her mum." The smile on Mister Kendrick's face almost looked genuine.

"We're taking Mum shopping first. Then we'll drop her back off and go for drinks."

He shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, sure."

With that, she held her mum's arm and smiled. "Come on, Mum, time to go shopping."

"Alons-y," John said, opening the door so they could leave, the wind from outside making his tan trench coat ripple.

* * *

Shopping with her mother and John went a lot better than she thought it was going to go. Her mother hadn't done anything embarrassing as of yet, and John didn't seem to mind the awkward behaviour of the emotionless shell that used to be Sharon. In fact, he acted liked nothing odd at all was going on. He had small conversations with Sharon, and he continued talking with Nicole, acting like this was just another night on the town.

"So these missing girls," he said randomly, seeing as they had just been talking about bananas a few seconds ago, "Is there any common link between them? Other than the fact they're girls."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Why on earth would he want to talk about that? "Why?"

"Oh, I s'pose 'cause I love a good mystery."

She shrugged. "No."

"But you agree it's weird, right?"

"Well yeah." She had always thought it weird, but now it was doubly so seeing as she had seen the blue police box.

"Well, uh, how old was the youngest? Do you know?"

Nicole frowned as she thought. She's never really paid much attention to the age, well, not enough to remember it. She had to think for awhile before she finally hummed with thought. "Sixteen. I think. 'Round there."

"And the oldest?"

"Forty. I know that, because she was the psychology teacher."

"The one you replaced?"

"Yeah."

"Bet that income helps you a bit, eh?"

She gave him an odd look. That had been a strange thing to say.

As soon as she looked at him, he cleared his throat. "You sure your mum should be doing that?"

She turned around to see her mum drinking a bottle of red juice she had just taken off of the shelf. "Dammit," she mumbled, then went over to her mum. "Come on, give it over. You know you're not supposed to do that until you buy it."

"But I'm thirsty," her mother told her.

"Yeah, but you need to buy it first. Put the lid back on and hand it over," she said, sticking her hand out. It was like reprimanding a little child, only a bit more embarrassing since she was telling off an adult.

"But I want it now," she informed, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she couldn't understand why on earth she couldn't just drink a bottle of juice before paying for it.

She reached for it, but her mother stepped away from her. "Just hand it over. We're done anyway, you can drink it as soon as we pay for it. Just come on, Mum, hand it over." She reached for it again, and this time she managed to grab it, then her mother jerked it out of her hand, and spilled the red juice all over herself.

Her mother looked down at her shirt as if mildly intrigued by the idea of having red juice dripping all down her front.

Nicole held her forehead in her hand and began massaging her temple while she closed her eyes, clenching her jaw shut so as to prevent herself from yelling. After a second she lowered her hand from her forehead and stuck her hand out wordlessly. Her mother put the lid back on and handed the half-empty bottle over.

She stuck it in the basket and turned back around to look at John, "Sorry about that. Sometimes she just doesn't--"

John rushed past her and she turned around. Her mother had started pulling her stained shirt over her head, but John had grabbed her wrists and forced them back down, so that she wasn't flashing the whole store. "Probably shouldn't do that, Sharon."

"My shirt is dirty."

"Yeah, yeah, kinda noticed that." He looked her over, then he took off his tan trench coat. He handed it to her, and watched as she put it on, tying it around the waist so that she could hide the stain.

"I'm sorry about that," Nicole muttered, stepping closer to him, pinching the bridge of her nose in slight embarrassment and irritation.

John shrugged, completely ignoring the strange looks they were getting, while Nicole tried to do the same while pushing the cart to the register. "Nah, it's all right. She doesn't have her emotions to inhibit her. Not your fault. Or hers. Or, well, anyone's, really. Not unless someone sucked them right out of her, but I can hardly see how that could happen, eh?"

Nicole nodded as she stepped in queue. It wasn't until a second later she realized that what he'd said was strange, and she looked at him, wondering if perhaps she had heard him wrong. He was staring at her seriously, his brown eyes boring into hers, his mouth a straight line. He stuck his hands into his pockets and kept that same, stony expression.

She blinked at him. She would have thought he was kidding around if not for the fact that had happened to her sister. And Robert. And his mother. And half the people in the dance three years ago. Maybe he had suffered the same fate? Or maybe she was just being paranoid.

He raised both of his eyebrows and jutted his chin out for a second, gesturing forward. She turned and noticed she was next, and she paid for all of her objects, shaking her head to get all the odd thoughts out of it. Of course he had been kidding.

But it was the joke that made her realize something. Her mother hadn't been emotionless for no reason. She hadn't ever thought about it since it had been a slow process, her emotions leaving her. But now that she thought about it, Katie Langston had been rather emotionless lately, too. And some of her other students seemed to be lacking, well, any sort of feeling. And that damn blue box . . .

Without really thinking about it, she paid and received her change, apologized for the half-empty bottle, and carried the bags out of the store.

Maybe there had been more than just the two Kiras. Maybe it had infected her mother. Maybe her mother was dead and just possessed with an alien. Or maybe she was letting a random comment get to her head.

"What was that you said, in the store?" she asked quietly, watching her mother drink out of the bottle.

He gave her the dark, serious look once more. "I said a lot of things," he stated ominously, his tone deep. He stepped rather close to her, and looked down at her through his lashes.

Her heart leapt in her throat, and she didn't know if it was fear because he almost sounded threatening, although she had no idea why, or from attraction, because he was quite close to her and he looked rather intense.

Suddenly, his eyes travelled over her body, but not in a sexual way, but more of a I-just-barely-noticed-what-you're-wearing sort of way. His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked out into the street, looking a little more confused, then he looked over at her mother, and his eyes travelled over her much in the same way he had looked at Nicole. Then he looked down at what he was wearing. "Déjà vu . . ." he muttered quietly, then his eyes widened and his mouth opened a little bit.

A guy with a newspaper walked by, reading the newspaper. John reached forward and yanked the newspaper out of the passer-by's hand. "Hey, I was reading that!" the guy shouted.

"John?" Nicole inquired, confused.

His eyes widened even more, if possible. He gave the paper back to the guy and turned to Nicole. "Gotta go to the loo," he said quickly, then started jogging towards the store's doors again.

"Wait, John, what's going on?" she shouted, chasing after him a bit.

He turned around, jogging backwards, grimacing slightly. "Sorry, _really_ gotta go," he shouted back, then turned so he could jog forwards again. She stopped going after him and stared at the store's doors, utterly confused.

"What the hell is his problem?" said the guy with the newspaper from behind her.

She turned around, rubbing the back of her head, knowing her face was screwed up in confusion. "I don't know. Had to use the loo, apparently."

"And what on God's green earth does that have to do with him yankin' this out of my hand?" he exclaimed, shaking the paper, as if Nicole had somehow caused the incident.

She shrugged. "I don't know, I was just--" That's when she realized something; something she should have noticed before. "Where's my mum?"

"What?"

Nicole looked around the area, eyes searching for her mother. "She was just here, she was right beside me, and--"

Nicole saw her.

She was about to cross the street, even though cars were zooming past. "MUM!" she screeched. Her heart slammed against her rib cage and she saw nothing except the fact her mother turned around at her voice, and a car was heading straight for her. Nicole went to charge after her, somehow push her out of the way, although it was too late--she wouldn't make it in time--the guy with the newspaper grabbed Nicole the waist, preventing her from running out into the street too--

She could hear her blood rushing past her ears--her head was pounding along with her heart--the driver of the car finally noticed her mum and slammed on the brakes--her mother was finally aware of the situation, and just turned towards the car, looking at it like a deer stares at oncoming traffic--Nicole was trying to pull out of the guy's grasp--a man in a blue suit rushed by, obscuring her vision--

Suddenly, there was a blue blur, and her mother and the man in the blue suit fell to the sidewalk. She elbowed the guy holding her back in the ribs and fell to her knees beside her mother, heart thudding in her chest. The man had yanked her off of the street so forcefully he'd tripped himself on the curb, and falling, face first, on her mother. She pushed the man off of her, and saw that her mum was face down on the sidewalk. She grabbed her mother's shoulder and flipped her on her back.

Her mother's eyes were closed, blood smeared her bottom lip and chin. Her head hung limply to one side, and John's trench coat was wide open, her mother's juice-stained shirt halfway up her abdomen. Panic hit Nicole--what if the man hadn't been quick enough--what if she had been hit--what if they'd both been hit--

She thrust her hand up her mother's shirt, pressing her hand against her sternum, when she heard; "That was a close one, eh?"

She turned her head, recognizing the voice. She could feel her mother's heart beating against her hand, but she was too confused to pull it away. "John?" she said, confused.

John blinked his big brown eyes innocently, hunched over, balancing on the tips of his feet, his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlocked. "Eh?" he muttered, furrowed his eyebrows. Then his eyes widened. "Oh, right. Yeah?"

She blinked a few times. "What?" She looked at his blue suit, distinctly remembering him wearing a brown pinstriped one before he headed off to the loo. "Did you . . . Change your clothes?"

"What?"

"You weren't wearing that before you headed off to the loo."

He looked down at what he was wearing. "Oh, _right_ . . . Yeah . . ." He then looked back up at her and smiled. "Uh, yeah, I changed. My clothes. In the loo."

"You, er . . . Did it extremely fast."

"Right, well, you know . . ." He sniffed and tilted his head to the side while he shrugged. "Useless talent. So, umm, tell me--because I'm a daft idiot--we've met before? Before now, I mean?"

She blinked at him. "Did you hit your head?"

"Yes, I did, and now my head is all wonky and I . . . don't know anything . . . 'cause of the head wound. So, yeah, we've met? Before now? Recently?"

"Er . . . Yeah, at the store, yesterday. You were wearing that suit."

"Right, yeah, I remember, you've cleared it all up, thanks, you're a genius." He smiled at her, then he frowned. "Wait, we've met before then, haven't we? I swear I know you."

"No, we just met yesterday. Are you sure you're all right?"

He blinked a few times. "Right. Yeah. Head injury. No, um, I'm fine, really, just . . ." His eyes left her face and focused on her hand, which was still up her mother's shirt, feeling her mother's heart beat against he chest, so that she was definitely alive. "What are you doing?" he asked, voice a completely different pitch.

She pulled her hand out of her mother's shirt, feeling rather stupid for forgetting her hand was in there. "Oh, nothing." She shook her head, then looked back at John. "She just walked out there, John. And of course she wasn't afraid, she can't feel anything, so she didn't . . ."

"Right, no emotions, yeah . . ." he mumbled, staring at her seriously, his face stony. He slowly stood up and looked down at them. Her mother moaned and started stirring, but she was more concerned by the way John was staring at her. "So, er . . . I went into the loo. And . . . Yeah, I'm gonna go . . . Put some cold water on my head, because of the injury, um . . . you just . . . wait here."

He grabbed the newspaper out of the guys' hand again. The guy protested loudly as John looked over it, then thrust it back into his hand, and started to the store again.

Nicole frowned, still puzzled, then realized that a crowd had gathered around them. Feeling suddenly embarrassed, she grabbed her mother's hand and helped her stand up. Her mother just smiled at her, then wiped the blood off of her lip on the back of her hand. "Are you okay, Mum?" she asked, her voice cracking, tears welling up in her eyes.

Her mum looked on the back of her hand, staring at the blood. "Hmm. I'm bleeding."

Nicole felt a mixture of emotions just then. The residual fear of what had just happened mixed with the anger and sadness when she realized that her mother just didn't care that she had almost died. "Mum, you were--you were almost hit by a car. Don't you even--"

Her mother blinked at her, then tilted her head. "Honey, you know I have a condition. It's fine. I'm not dead. Are you gonna--Oh, don't cry, it's not a big deal."

She stared into her mother's face, her mouth opening a closing, able to think of anything to say. Her mother almost died, John had saved her in the last possible minute, and she didn't even care. It meant absolutely nothing to her. Nicole wanted to shake her mum, smack her, scream at her, get her to realize she had almost died, but she knew that even if she did, absolutely nothing would happen. Her mother would just stare at her blankly, and the crowd around them would tear her away, hold her back . . .

This was not normal. Nicole's heart was going to break, her head was swimming, she was nauseous with fear, and her mother . . . Just stood there. That couldn't be normal. This wasn't just a mental disease. Just like Katie wasn't having problems at home. Just like the Doctor was running around with Rose, leaving his police box locked so she couldn't get in.

"Hey, all," John greeted, stepping beside them. He smiled at them.

"You changed back," she noted, thrusting her emotion down into the pit of her stomach.

He smiled at her. "Yep. Well, useless talent, you know." He sniffed, then looked both of them over. "Cold water worked like a charm. Head's all cleared up, memory is just fine . . ." His brown eyes caught Nicole's, his grin faded from his face, looking stony, and almost dangerous. ". . . and I know _exactly_ who you are."

She furrowed her eyebrows at him, getting an uneasy feeling in her gut, which only amplified when he put his hands in the pockets of his brown suit.

She shook her head, grabbed her mother's hand, and felt her heart die a little when she saw the dull, lifeless look in her eyes. "Come on, Mum. Let's go home."

* * *

The trip was silent. She kept glancing back at John to find he was staring intensely at her in return. It bothered her, so she would quickly look away. As soon as she made it home, she took John's trench coat off of her mother, then handed it over to him. He was still standing on the porch while she stood in the house, holding out his jacket.

He took it form her and put it on, his eyes never leaving hers. He put his hands in the pockets and smiled at her as he rocked on his heels. "Still interested in that date?" he asked, over-pronouncing the T and widening his eyes.

She couldn't believe him. She couldn't believe that he would be so harsh. Her mother had almost died, for God's sake, and he still wanted to go on that date with her? Especially after his cold demeanour? Did the man not think? "Actually, I would like to stay here," she informed, none too nicely.

"Oh I bet you would," he nearly growled, his mouth turning into a slight snarl.

And suddenly it made sense. Nicole's brain clicked, and it was like being smacked upside the head. He wasn't John Smith the human, but instead, the Kiras. He was the emotionless, unfeeling Kiras who had killed her sister. Or at least, of the same race. Somehow the Kiras escaped her sister--they hadn't found the alien body, after all--and possessed this man, and it had taken the alien three years to find her. No wonder he recognized her and she didn't recognize him. No wonder he'd been so interested in her. A part of her felt betrayed because she'd actually thought he liked her, or at least wanted to like her, but most of her was angry and vengeful. He had killed her sister. He had killed Robert and Miss Hanson. He had killed the real John Smith, whoever that was. It was because of him Katie Langston wasn't being herself, and now that she thought about it, several of her students seemed to be rather unfeeling . . . Several other teachers complained about it too, albeit briefly and in passing . . .

But most unforgivable of all, he had taken her mother form her. He had stolen her emotions, and now when she stared at her mother, she saw nothing. He had slowly taken every emotion from Sharon, until she was just a hollow shell, torturing Nicole, making her believe her mother had actually stopped caring about her . . .

She took a step closer, breathing heavily, anger thrumming through her veins so hotly she wondered if her blood was boiling. "I know who you are," she revealed coldly.

His eyes widened and an eyebrows raised, his mouth twisted in a sneer. "I bet you do."

"You stay away form me," she ordered.

She went to shut the door, but he took his hand out of his pocket and slammed it against the wood, so that it bounced back open. "How can I do that? If you know me at all, you know that I won't."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Leave," she spat.

"I'm giving you 'til tonight to leave, and _never_ come back. If you're still here, then you won't live to see the sun rise, got it?"

Nicole really wished she could have thought of something more threatening than what he'd said. She really wanted to give him the chills, just as he had done. She wanted to rip out his throat and beat his dying body. But she couldn't. Her voice got caught in her throat, and a cold, prickling sense of fear travelled down her spine.

So, instead, she slammed the door in his face.


	5. Chapter 5

Nicole lied in her bed, listening to the sounds of her house. She watched the light from outside fill her room. She waited for the sounds of someone breaking in the door. As much as she hated to admit it, she was afraid. She wished she could have said she'd made some elaborate trap in the living room that would kill John (or the Kiras) as soon as he stepped through that door. She wished she could have said she got a weapon and was planning to attack him with it. But instead, she'd spent the entire day freaking out, and now she was lying in her bed, blankets up to her chin, just waiting for him to burst in. her plan wasn't to rush down and attack him or anything special like that. No, her plan was that as soon as the door opened, as soon as she heard him enter, she was going to climb out her window of her bedroom--thankfully she had a one-story house--and run, as fast as she could, to the blue police box. If the Doctor wasn't in there, he would eventually go back to it. And she knew it was his box, because she walked by that place every day, and today was the first time she had seen it there.

The door opened, and she jolted up, getting ready to dive out of the window. She hadn't even heard him come in!

"Nicole?" came the voice of Mister Kendrick.

"Oh, thank God," she muttered. It was the first time she'd been grateful to hear his voice. It was probably the last, too.

She stood up off of her bed, brushing off her pyjamas, which consisted of grey sweats and a white button-up shirt that was too big for her and bared her shoulder.

He looked her over as he switched on the light. She squinted against the brightness for a moment. "You're wearing shoes," he noted.

She looked down. Blue chucks. Of course he noticed them. They sort of stuck out. "My feet were cold," she lied. She was such a horrible liar, so it didn't really surprise her that he looked at her with disbelief.

He stepped into her room and shut the door behind him. He walked closer to her, so closer their toes were almost touching. "Where are you going, Nicole?" he inquired, almost politely.

"Nowhere."

He raised an eyebrow at her, his green eyes roving over her body. "Just as well. I need to talk with you."

Without really meaning to, she shifted her weight onto her other foot as a guise to step backward. He took another step forward. "Do we have to do this now?" she asked, stepping backward again.

He glanced down at her feet, then took another step forward. Her heart thudded in her chest when his mouth twitched into a smile. "After what your mother and you told me about what happened today, I realized that her and her disease is out of our control, and I'm taking her to the, ah, _proper_ people."

"What?" she demanded, her fear escalating and mixing with anger. "You're sending her to a mental hospital?"

He chuckled deeply and took another step forward so quickly that she stumbled backwards out of shock, and the need to get away form him. "I much prefer the word asylum, don't you?"

"You can't do that!" she shouted.

"Being her husband, I am in charge, and I can do whatever I please."

She wanted so desperately to say something, to somehow articulate her anger and fear, but nothing came out. Her mouth just opened and closed. She couldn't think of anything to say.

"It'll just be me and you, Nicole," he said, his voice biting and cool. Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw the hungry look in his green eyes. He took another step closer and she moved to step away, but her back hit her wall. "You're afraid."

"No I'm not," she lied.

They stared at each other for a second. She moved to dart past him, but he grabbed her shoulders and slammed her against the wall, the back of her head bouncing off of it with a thunk. She went to move past him again but he held her shoulders, holding her still. She started beating on his chest and screaming out for her mother. Even if she had no feelings, a part of her must realize her daughter was screaming, and she wasn't afraid, so why on earth would she _not_ fight him off?

His hand found her throat and held her still, squeezing, while his other hand found her buttons and started undoing them.

Black dots started swimming in front of her eyes. She grabbed his wrist, squirming, trying to get his hand off of her shirt, to stop fiddling with her buttons, to stop pressing his hand in between her breasts, when an idea struck her. She thrust her knee upwards, and felt it connect with his crotch.

He cried out and fell to his knees, and she darted over to her dresser, opening the top drawer, and grabbing her pepper spray, She spun around and held it out in front of her, to see Mister Kendrick charging for her.

She shrieked and raised the bottle, then a bat swung out of nowhere and--THWACK!--hit him right upside the head.

"Mum?" she said, stunned.

Her mother turned a blank stare in her direction. "You screamed for help. I just did what I was supposed to," he told her emotionlessly.

He backhanded her mother across the face so hard she fell over. The side of his head was bleeding, dark red dripping down his face. He turned back to Nicole and lunged for her, and she pressed down, spraying him right in the face.

He cried out and held his eyes, staggering backwards and tripping over his own feet, falling to the floor.

And that's when she heard the door bang open from the living room.

She ran towards her window and jumped out, darting out of her backyard, her shirt open and flapping behind her. She charged down the street, trying to button up her shirt and hold onto her pepper spray at the same time. Her lungs were burning and her eyes were moist, her heart thumping in her chest so hard it hurt. Her mind was racing, so overcome with the day's events she couldn't sort anything out. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had to get to that blue police box. She had to find Rose and the Doctor.

When she saw the blue police box, hope fuelled her. It was right there, in front of her. She forced her legs to move faster, despite the fact they were suddenly burning. She was almost there when she felt someone grab her shoulder.

She shrieked and spun around, lifting up her pepper spray, not caring that she must have looked ridiculous with her mousy brown hair a mess and her shirt half-buttoned (and buttoned improperly, too.) "Back off!" she screamed shrilly, her voice tearing through her throat, since it was dry from heavy, panicked breathing from running. And the fact she'd been strangled, although nowhere near as badly as the last time it had happened.

John reached into his jacket and pulled out some odd alien instrument that was thin and silver. He pointed it at her pepper spray and did something to it so that the tip shined a bright blue, and a noise issued from it. She flinched, expecting something horrible to happen, but when the noise stopped and the light disappeared, nothing happened.

Their eyes locked, and it was like fire shot through her. Her heart was beating rapidly somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, and her blood was rushing past her ears, and her eyes were burning, tears leaking out of the corners.

"I gave you a chance to leave," John finally said through clenched teeth. "You made a mistake by staying. You're lucky I even gave you that chance. You killed her. She did nothing wrong, and now she's dead."

"She did nothing to deserve it?" she shrieked. So it finally made sense. He had made her life a living hell over the fact her and the Doctor had killed the other Kiras in the school. "She took my family from me! Or was that you, all along? Was it? Answer me!"

"Yes, that was me! It was all me!" he growled, his eyebrows raising, his eyes widening madly, his upper lip curled into a scowl while he stalked towards her. She backed up as quickly as he approached. Her back hit the police box, and she took in a sharp breath.

Nicole let out a noise that was a mixture of a sob and a scream; it sounded almost like a wounded, dying animal. She pressed down on the pepper spray, aiming directly for his eyes.

And nothing happened.

She pressed down again, and again, and still, nothing. She looked at the alien device in his hand, and even though his wildly angry expression did not change, she could almost feel his triumph. "Sonic screwdriver," he explained darkly, although the words might as well have been spoken in a foreign language because it made no sense to her.

She tossed the bottle at his head and it bounced off. He looked dazed, so she ran past him, but when she was a few feet off he grabbed her wrist and pulled her so that her back was against his chest. He managed to pin one of her arms against her chest for a moment, then she pulled free. He grabbed her wrist again and tried to pull her to him. She turned to face him and tried to pull free, and realized she was facing the blue police box. She jerked her wrist out of his grasp but he reached for her just as she darted towards the box. She reached forward to grab the handle or knock or something, but he managed to pull her against his chest again. This time he successfully pinned her one arm against her chest and used his free hand to cover her mouth.

"Tell me where the ship is," he whispered harshly into her ear.

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she knew that they were close enough to the police box door for her to kick it. So she used her right foot to start kicking the door while she used her free hand to grab his wrist and try to pull his hand free.

He either didn't notice she was kicking the door or he didn't care, so she kept doing it, ignoring the taste of his salty skin against her half-opened mouth. She was only mildly aware of the fact he kept repeating himself--_"tell me where the ship is"_--but she was more concerned with trying to get the Doctor and Rose's attention and break free than make sense of what he was saying or why.

She kept pulling on his wrist and kicking the door, cringing slightly at the taste of salty skin.

"Just lead me to your--oh for Pete's sake would you quit kicking it?" he snapped, then took a few steps away so that she half-fell and he was dragging her feet across the ground while she tried to correct her posture.

And then a brilliant idea struck her, one that was so brilliant and obvious she didn't know why it hadn't occurred to her before.

She bit down into her palm, nearly gagging at the taste of flesh and blood when she broke the skin. He yelled out and pulled his hand away form her mouth. "Doctor! Open the door! Doctor, help! The Kiras! It's here! Doctor!" she shouted, spitting out the blood that was in her mouth.

His grip slackened and she broke free. Before she could even think of whether or not she should run or try to get the Doctor's attention by yelling through the door, he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around. She went to hit him, but he quickly had her pinned against the box, wrists above her head.

"What did you say?" he demanded, brows furrowed and head tilted, looking utterly bewildered.

"What?"

"What did you say?" he repeated, leaning closer.

"What does it matter to you?"

"You're not the Kiras?" he spluttered, looking at her like she'd just grown another head.

She was positively disgusted at the fact he would call her that. "What? Of course not! You are!"

"No I'm not," he informed, sounding just as disgusted as she was.

"You're not?"

_"You're not?"_ he muttered, still looking over her face disbelievingly.

She scoffed. "No."

"What?" he whispered, apparently too stunned at the knowledge to say anything else.

He stared at her, still holding her wrist, nose inches from hers, her heart slowing, her breath stabilizing. His body was practically pressed against hers, and even though he was, apparently, not the bad guy, it was still quite awkward. "Um, could you not--I mean, could you let go of me?"

He looked at her wrists, which he was still holding, as if he just realized what was going on, then he pulled away from her. She let out a long, relaxed breath when he took several steps back. "What? But--you were--I thought that--_what?"_ He ran both of his hands through his hair so that it stuck up in many different angles, face screwed up. "But I swear, you were the Kiras, because you--you were--outside the store--with the car and the hand--and at lunch--you--" He turned away from her and made this odd half-growl half-yell, while he flung his hands out, away from his face, then spun back to her, and pointed at her. "But you--It was so obvious--you were being--" He stopped talking, then put one hand on top of his head and grabbed a fistful of his own hair. "What?"

She blinked, looking him over, trying to piece together what he just said, although she had a feeling that she pretty much had the same thing to say.

They stared at each other, unmoving, silence awkwardly filling the air.

Finally, she found her voice. "So . . . you're not the Kiras?"

He shook his head. "Nope." He over-pronounced the P a little, stuffing his hands in his trench coat pockets.

"And . . . You thought I was?"

"Yep." He popped the P again, nodding as he did so, the street lamps shining off of his messy hair.

She folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head. "Why?" she asked, finally managing to ask the one thing she really wanted to know.

"Because, well, there were so many reasons, I couldn't really place just the one--you did seem a little, you know, emotionless at lunch. I asked you if it bothered you that your mum obviously didn't love you, I brought up your dead sister and you just shrugged it off, I thought maybe you were lying, but then--then--I asked you on a date and you didn't seem to be nervous, you said you didn't know, not to mention the fact your mum doesn't have emotion, at all, and I figured you were sucking it out of her--especially since you didn't seem to care at all that your mum was almost hit by that car, I thought that was weird--"

"What? I did care! I was checking for her heart beat, obviously! Besides, you just walked right out and grabbed her after I saw you go into the store--and you changed your clothes--you have to admit that's a little confusing, besides, I'd already figured my mum was safe--you would have been confused too."

"Yeah, but I kept asking you how you felt at lunch today, and you said you didn't know, you didn't seem to care at all and, if you're not the Kiras, why did you attack your mum and you stepfather, eh?"

He stood away from the police box and glared at him. "I _refuse_ to call him that!"

"That doesn't really answer my question."

"First of all, he started it. He came into my room and tried to rape me, so of course I fought him off! Then my mum came in and hit him over the head with a cricket bat, not 'cause she worried about me or anything but 'cause she knew she was supposed to--besides she wasn't afraid of getting beat up, so--then he hit her, I think he might have knocked her out, don't know--and then I sprayed him with my pepper spray. I didn't hit my mum. He hit her. And the bastard deserved what he got." She tilted her chin upward a bit, daring him to contradict her.

"But he said you dove out the window as soon as you heard me come in."

"Well yeah! I _thought_ you were Kiras!"

"Why would you think that?"

She scoffed. "As if it isn't obvious. You were acting all interested in me and I thought you were just trying to get to know me or get me to trust you to get back at me because I killed your other Kiras family or whatever!"

"You're half-right, I'll give ya that."

The fact he admitted to only faking being interested in her didn't really make her feel better about herself. "Then, you make that comment about sucking emotions out in the store--"

"--to get you to realize I was onto you," he interjected.

"--then after my mum almost died, you asked me to go on a date! That's a bit harsh, don't you think? My mum almost died, and you think I'm just gonna go about our little date?"

"I did that to see how you reacted, to prove you had no emotion, obviously. That's why I asked about the date." He furrowed his eyebrows a bit. "Actually, it was more of a non-date date get-together with drinks, not really a date."

"Okay, fine."

"But I understand why you thought that." She nodded, feeling better about herself, now that he admitted that she wasn't being a complete idiot by assuming. "The thing about the Kiras, I mean, not about the date. I thought I made myself pretty clear that it was a non-date date that _could_ be a non-non-date afterwards and even possibly a date-date since getting drinks is the non-date date that could be a date-date date of choice, which was really just espionage--ooh, es-pi-on-age, _espionage,_ espi-on . . . age. Ooh, that _is_ a nice word. But I don't see how you actually thought--"

"All right, all right, I get it," she said, lifting both of her hands, suddenly wondering about his sanity.

"But _you,"_ he started, walking towards her, pointing at her, "put your hand up your mother's shirt and against her chest. Explain _that!"_

"I was checking for a heart beat _and_ breath."

"There are pulse points for that."

"What more do you want, huh? It was just easier access, all right?" He lowered his finger, and he appeared to look thoughtful. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"The Kiras can manipulate feelings by touching a person, because it's only manipulating, not stealing, not taking," he said, as if she already knew that, which she didn't. "But, when it comes to taking the emotions, stealing them, they can't just touch and go, can they? No, they have to put their hand right over the source, put it directly over the heart, right on the sternum."

"But . . . that's not where emotions come from. They come from the brain."

"Well yeah, I know that, of course, everybody knows that, the heart pumps blood, it doesn't send or receive nerves, yeah, but where do people _say_ feelings come from? It's the myth of the feeling, it's the thought, it's what people _believe._ If I give you a sugar pill and tell you it's a pain pill, and you believe me, chances are it'll work, get rid of your pain, not because sugar actually numbs pain, but because I say it will. If the human race said feeling came from the liver, the Kiras would have to put their hands above the liver--in fact, that actually happened! It happened, oh, well, I would have to say more than--"

"Wait, they have to touch the _sternum_ to get the feelings out?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. Unless it was the myth that it comes from someplace else, which it could, depending on the myth of the planet and culture; it's not so much science as belief with them, since feelings really are quite abstract--"

"He wasn't trying to rape me," she realized quietly.

"--so the Kiras work on the abstract, thrive on it, which is why it doesn't--what?" He looked at her. "What did you say?"

"He wasn't trying to rape me. He was trying to touch my chest."

For a second, they both looked at each other, realizing the implications.

Then they both started running.


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor could hardly believe it. He had spent two whole days trying to find a way to get to Nicole, get close to her, make absolutely sure his hypothesis was right, and when all the pieces fell into place, it was the wrong puzzle altogether! All the clues pointed _right_ to her. It had so obviously been her. Perhaps that had been the biggest clue that it wasn't her, because of the fact it obviously _was_ her. What was that word people used in those situations? Red-herrings?

Yes, the fact that all the clues pointed to NicoleKiras should have made him realize that it couldn't have been her. Well, except that only worked in fiction, didn't it? This was reality, and in reality, whenever clues were so obviously pointing at a certain somebody then that usually meant that's who it was. Only in fiction did red herrings exist. Only in fiction did obvious clues mean not real clues. Except for every now and then when the Doctor bollixed up, which was a rather rare occasion since he was a genius, to put it modestly. However, the fact he was an utterly brilliant, marvellous genius meant that when he bollixed up, it was usually far worse than when other less intelligent people got it wrong. Thankfully, as far as mistakes went, this really wasn't that bad. So he really shouldn't be dwelling too much on it. He was mainly just surprised at the fact he was completely and utterly wrong, and rightly so, seeing as that was weird.

"Nicole, grab your pepper spray, and get ready," he said, trying the doorknob. It jiggled, which meant it was unlocked. A stroke of luck. He loved it when that happened. She looked at him like he had dribbled all over his shirt, and looked her over. "What?" It was really bothering him, the way she looked at him.

"I threw it at you. You broke it. With your, er, screwdriver. It bounced off your head."

"It did?" He remembered her trying to spray him with it, and that it didn't work, and that she threw it at his head, and it had tumbled to the ground. He would have grabbed it, except he had grabbed her. "Oh, it did!" he realized, suddenly wishing that he'd managed to grab it. He turned a sympathetic look towards her. "Sorry."

She smiled briefly at him. "It's all right."

He looked her over. Her white shirt was buttoned improperly, parts of her skin showing since it was only half-way done, so he could also see some of her bra. Her brown hair was a mess, sticking up in the back, although it hung limply past her shoulders. She had dull blue eyes that were still moist form earlier, and a little red and puffy. She was a bit different from last time, when she had gone to the dance, so she'd gotten a little dressed up. But she still looked the same. Except maybe a little thinner--but that, considering what she'd been through since then, wasn't really surprising.

"What's in pepper spray?" he rhetorically asked, scrunching up his eyes a bit. She looked at him, then shrugged. "Capsaicin . . . Yeah, that's in chillies, then all we have to do is get some ethanol, and then we just have to suspend it in water somehow . . . Oh! Propylene glycol, yeah, then it'll suspend, then we just have to pressurize it, stick it in an aerosol can, yeah, that'll do. But first, the capsaicin--do you have chillies? Bell peppers? Eh? Any of that?"

"And we're gonna what? Set up a lab in the meantime?" she pointed out. "We've got guns."

"No guns," he ordered, pointing his sonic screwdriver at her.

She furrowed her eyebrows. "But that's what the Doctor used. This sort of laser gun thing. It worked for him."

He leaned forward, pointing the screwdriver closer to her face. "No guns. None. Not a one. Get me? Eh?" She looked at him strangely. "I don't like guns, okay?"

She nodded. "All right. No guns."

He looked at the door, the peeked through the small window at the top of the door. "No, you just need something to protect yourself with . . . Can't believe you didn't stop to think to pick up that bottle of pepper spray."

"Er, you broke it."

He waggled his sonic screwdriver. "I can fix it."

"Well I didn't know that, did I? Besides, it's not like we don't have more. Mum took a defence class back before . . ." She let out a sigh, then looked at him. "I lied to you. The Kiras, well, it killed my sister. It possessed her and tried to kill me. It was sucking all the emotions out of the students. That's why my sister died. The Kiras thought they were dying 'cause they'd never felt that sort of pain before, so . . ."

"Yep . . ." He supposed he could have--or even should have--told her that he'd been there the first time around, but he wasn't really in the mood to go into a family-movie-of-the-week monologue since they were currently doing something that required all of their attention, so he just rushed right along. "That's why your mum has had her emotions taken from her, too. Slowly, I imagine. Kendrick prob'ly thought you'd figure it out if he took all her emotion at once. Where's your sister's room?"

"It's the first room on the left, across the hall from mine," she answered.

"Right. We're gonna get in there, and I'm gonna go in first, and you're gonna follow me, all right? I'll keep him busy and you go in her room and grab some. Oh, yeah, and try not to make too much noise. Oh, and you should probably know, he's figured out it's not poison obviously, 'cause he referred to it as pepper spray, and the effects only last about forty-five minutes . . . And we've been gone for at least twenty, and he's probably flushed his eyes out with water like I told him to so the effects really wouldn't last as long as they should, so be careful."

She nodded at him. "Okay."

He looked her over. "You aware you've buttoned your shirt all wrong?"

She gave him a disapproving glare, and he just grinned at her. She turned away from him and quickly buttoned up her shirt properly, then turned back to face him, nodding again. "Okay."

"Alons-y then."

He opened the door quietly and stepped in, pointing his sonic screwdriver, glancing around the living room, ready to press his button at a moment's notice. When he saw that the living room was clear, he motioned for her to come in.

He crept down the hallway and kicked open Nicole's bedroom door, pointing his screwdriver at the first person he saw, which turned out to be her mother. "Oh, hey . . . You were knocked out the first time I dropped in."

"Hey, John," she greeted dully.

"Get the pepper spray," he commanded, listening to Nicole open the door across the hall. "Is your husband here?"

"No, when I woke up, he was gone. My head hurts, though."

He let out a growl of frustration, then lowered his screwdriver. "Looks like we wait for him here then. I _hate_ waiting."

Nicole came into the room, and showed him the pepper spray. "Got it. This time, try not to break it, John."

He took it out of her hands. She went to take it back, but he was taller than her, so he just lifted his hand so that she couldn't reach it. "Hold on a bit, eh," he said. He put his screwdriver against it and pressed the button, bathing it in a blue light, listening to the familiar high-pitched hum. He worked it around the top, then handed it back to her. "It's more pressurized now. Stronger, too. Don't press that down unless you have to. You press it once, _pretty_ much expels everything in it."

She nodded. "So . . . What do we do now?"

"We wait, then when he gets here, we tie him up and interrogate him."

"Er, why?"

"Obvious question, I s'pose. Because, he's got a ship, and it's gotta be around here somewhere. See, when he takes someone's emotions, he keeps them inside of him. It's a drug to him--his kind don't have emotions biologically--and when his ancestors found out they could manipulate and steal and posses, they became addicted to it. Started breeding, and their children were born with the addiction--much like any child can be if their mother takes drugs during pregnancy--and so they usually keep their hosts alive, and fully emotional, so that their children know what it's like . . . But, soon as they give birth, the take the emotions out of the mothers, and put it in this box. Once an emotion is in the box, it can only be used once. Then it fades, and the original owner can't ever get it back."

Nicole's eyes flickered over to her mother, and the Doctor found himself looking too. "So . . . since Mum's emotions never came back . . . I can assume he put them in the box, then?"

He looked at her sadly. She wasn't looking at him, though, but at her mother instead. He reached forward and put his hand on her shoulder, expecting her to pull away like she did the last time he did it--granted, her sister had just died, so he understood why she had done that--but this time she seemed to welcome it. "I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry."

She looked at him, then shrugged his hand off finally. "It's all right. We can't help it," she said, and he could have believed her, if not for the fact something in the back of his mind clicked, something that had happened at lunch. But it didn't serve any purpose other than to make him understand her a bit more; it didn't help her or her mother.

"It's not all right," he said.

"So . . . What else is there about the Kiras and the breeding?"

"Well, um . . . The male host, the one who impregnates the female, he shares a link with all of them until they are born. He feeds off of their emotions and they feed off of his. He keeps them living. So if he dies before their born, then they all die. They can't survive without him because, well, they're, for lack of a better term, high as a kite. You ever dealt with someone OD-ing on a drug or another? Oh, you temp psychology, you know what I'm talking about--they can't really take care of themselves--that's where methadone and feeding, and tubes come in, life support, that sort of thing, and he's their life support system, impregnating people to keep his race going--hence, all the disappearing girls, notice that they are all physically capable of child birth, and within his reach, all within their biological clock, still ticking, hasn't stopped, and we've gotta find his ship and kill him and free the girls--oh, they're probably so scared, he probably manipulated their emotions to fall in love with him, then, bam, stuck them in his ship, chained them up . . . And they're all pregnant . . . When did the first girl disappear? Since the mother is human, and he--or she--the alien--is possessing a human male form, the pregnancy should last the same amount of time a normal human pregnancy lasts."

He looked at Nicole, waiting for her to answer, and she bit her lip in thought. "Oh, um . . . Seven months ago?"

"Seven months? But he's been here for three years, why wait until just now?"

"Oh, he was trying to get me pregnant," Sharon said calmly.

The Doctor slowly turned and looked at her. "What?"

"He tried getting me pregnant. I didn't know about it until nine months ago, though, when I missed my period--ever since I got 'fixed' as he called it, I've had irregular periods. He took me to the ship, then when I explained the situation, he realized the problem. Ever since then, he's just been having sex with some of his students, some older women too. He's got about twenty."

The Doctor shared a look with Nicole, then he looked back at Sharon. "Can you take us to his ship?" he asked warily, hardly daring to hope it.

She hopped up and smiled at him. "Yes. Of all the times I've helped him carry an unconscious pregnant girl there, of course I do. He's probably went there now, to open his box and get some more emotions. He's impregnated so many girls they're feeding off of him, and the emotions fade quickly, so he has to go to the box sometimes when he can't feed off of regular people. Katie is a favourite. She's probably got all her emotions back now. Some of my emotions are still in the box. He's running out, though. I think he wanted to take yours, Nicole."

"Why take mine when he still has some of yours?"

"He's only got the bad ones now. Wants to fill it with the good feelings again."

The Doctor thought that made sense, so he nodded.

Nicole frowned a bit. "Wait, Mum . . . Why are you helping us now?"

"I have no loyalty to him. I have no loyalty to anybody. But I know what a mum is supposed to do when her child is threatened. So that's what I'm doing. It's not like I care what happens either way, but I know that I should care about you." She nodded at the both of them, and the Doctor noticed that Nicole was holding her pepper spray even tighter, and there was an odd gleam in her eyes. Sharon looked between them both blankly, then nodded. "Follow me."

The both followed her out of the room door, Nicole sticking close to him. "You seem to know a lot about this sort of thing."

"I'm a bit of an expert."

"Obviously. Well, that's good. You work for anybody? Or are you freelance?"

"Pretty sort of freelance."

"So . . . You saw me running, huh? That's how you caught up with me."

He let out a sigh. "No, not really. Well, yeah, I did, but I already knew where you were going before I saw you running off. 'Just trying to get in, see what a police box looks like, I swear.' Oh come _on_ as if I wouldn't see right through that! Besides, you're a horrible liar. _Really_ best get workin' on it if you lie as much as you did today but everyday. I doubt you do though 'cause most people tend to get better with practice, and well, I know _you_ can. So I figured there was a reason you wanted to go there, seeing as you were practically beating the door down, and so I knew you were going there. Plus, I left the house and saw you as a teeny tiny little pin prick off into the distance."

"That's not just a police box."

"You don't say?" he said, as Sharon opened the front door for them and they walked out.

"It travels through time and space. The Doctor and Rose left in it--they helped the last time it happened, that's why I went to it. Tried to get in it, but, well . . ."

"It's locked," he finished for her, although a bit dully. He frowned when she mentioned Rose. "Can't get in there without a key."

She chuckled a bit. "Yeah, makes sense. They're probably off fighting aliens or . . . Well, hey, even the Kiras. He's really something."

"Is he now?"

"Well, you'd have to be, in order to travel through time and space. And help people you don't even know." She frowned a little and looked downward for a second. "I yelled at him. My sister just died, and I . . . I don't know, I was just being an idiot. Spent a long time blaming him, blaming me, that sort of thing. Mostly me, though. Thought of all these different scenarios of how I could have saved her. If I'd only left as soon as I noticed she was gone, if I hadn't hesitated when I heard the noise . . . Instead of telling myself to stop being so protective when I saw Robert moving in on her, I should have beat the hell out of him. I get why he chose to posses her now, she was so pretty . . . So smart . . . But, well, there's nothing I could do, and I guess I just didn't want to accept it at first, so I . . . so I yelled at him. Yelled at myself a lot too, in my head. Maybe I just wanted to see him so I could apologize for being such an idiot or something. Or maybe I knew all along that things weren't right, and I just pushed it aside until I noticed he was back."

He looked at her, then reached forward and squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sure he knows you're sorry," he said a bit ominously.

"Yeah, maybe," she agreed, although he could tell by her tone that she was still a little let down. Then she chuckled a bit, shaking her head in amusement. "Oh God, listen to me--I really have been substituting psychology for a bit too long."

The Doctor joined her in her chuckles for a bit as they walked down the street. "Nah, I think it's good for you. But if things go our way, you'll soon be getting the original teacher back." She hummed a little, sounding a bit worried, but she kept her mouth shut. However, he could tell she was dwelling on an unpleasant thought by the way her brows furrowed. "With Kendrick dead--as he probably will be by the end of the night--and the original teacher back, what'll you do?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but for a second nothing came out. "Get another job, I s'pose. What'll you do?"

He smirked. "Travel."

"Must be nice."

"It is."

* * *

Sharon led them to an old, abandoned warehouse, that had a big, gaping hole in the side, like something had crashed into it and broke right through. Which, obviously, it had.

"It's right in there. Do you want me to come with?"

"He might kill you, Mum," Nicole said.

"He might kill you, Nicole," Sharon countered.

"Does that bother you?"

"Not in the slightest. But I'm not afraid to die. And I don't care about bashing his head in. And killing him."

"Hey, there will be no bashing," he snapped. They both just looked at him, Nicole nodding, and Sharon just raising an indifferent brow in his direction. "Come on. We all go in."

Sharon was the first to walk in, with the Doctor going in second, and Nicole following him closely, so that she was nearly right beside him. She was holding the pepper spray in her right hand and holding her wrist with her left, the same way she always did it, and he realized it was like she was holding a mini-gun, the way her stance was. Of course, he figured she was just holding it that way to prevent her wrist from shaking, but he noticed it nonetheless.

The ship wasn't very large, about as big as a good-sized living room. Sharon opened the door for them and they stepped in. With the controls, it seemed far more cramped than he had expected, not to mention the girls, all unconscious, probably on some sort of drug he had given them, chained to the walls. All of them were in various stages of pregnancy. Some of their stomachs were large and round, and some didn't look pregnant at all. The fact that there were litters of slimy, worm-like emotional parasites squirming around in each of their wombs made him a bit queasy.

"Sharon, what the hell are you--" Kendrick exclaimed, holding the box up to his chest. When his eyes moved from Sharon, to Nicole, to the Doctor, he put the box down on the small, round table in the centre of the ship, eyeing the pepper spray bottle warily, then the sonic screwdriver with a raised eyebrows. "A sonic device? Well, well, well, not exactly the average teacher are you, Mister Smith?"

"No, he isn't," Nicole said angrily. "Sucks to be you, Kendrick, 'cause he's an alien expert."

"I bet he is," Kendrick responded, his green eyes on the Doctor suspiciously. Then he turned his focus back on the Nicole, scoffing. "And don't even think about knocking over the box. It's connected to me, biologically, so any emotions that tip out of it don't go to anyone but me. Your mother will never feel again."

Sharon launched herself at Kendrick and grabbed his throat, squeezing it, shaking him. Kendrick batted at her for a second, then punched her right in the side of the head. Sharon swayed a bit, then fell over.

"Mum!" Nicole shouted,

"Bit pointless to yell, don't you think?"

The Doctor took a step forward. "What are you doing out here? None of these girls are ready for birth, and Sharon told us that the box only holds her less-than-pleasant emotions, so I really, really, really doubt you're sifting through them to pluck out depression or guilt."

"You think I don't know who you are? Soon as you burst into the house looking for Nicole because you thought she was me, I knew. I came here to get away from you. So I did what you said, flushed out my eyes, then came here. I was planning on taking off to another world, or maybe just another continent--you humans are, after all, so full of emotion.

"And you, Nicole, oh how I enjoyed making your life hell for killing my son. You should have seen the way you looked, the way you felt, when I took your mother's love for you away. How does it feel to have her look at you and know she doesn't love you, yet she loved me? Every night I came home and her eyes sparked, her face broke in a smile, but when she saw you, all she could feel was anger and hate because she blamed you for Vanessa's death. You wanna know how I know this? I was always touching her, wasn't I? Always holding her hand, always touching her shoulder--I made her feel that way. And you had no idea. I could feel you trying harder and harder to get her to love you, could feel you trying to take care of her, could feel you sobbing into your pillow at night, or hear you throwing things . . ."

"But--but the Doctor shot you! I saw your dead body!" she screamed.

"No, you saw your sister's dead body, and assumed I was still in her mind. No, I left that body and went in here. And you are going to fuel my box."

She raised the pepper spray. He looked at it warily, then laughed. "I will shoot you with it, I swear," she threatened.

"Yeah, well, you could hit him with it, couldn't you? That would really hurt, knock him right off his feet." When he saw the bewildered expression on Kendrick's face, he decided to elaborate. "Used my sonic screwdriver to make it more pressurized. Strong enough to knock a man off his feet, strong enough to knock anything over," he said, glancing at Nicole. She noticed he was looking at her, and she looked down at her pepper spray. "I mean, it could really knock something over, but look around, Nicole, really, _look around._ It's a bit dark. All that pepper spray will hurt him, and incapacitate him, but he could just leave the body. And then, he won't have any emotion. None whatsoever. I mean, we wouldn't be able to threaten him, 'cause he won't have any emotion--won't feel scared, or guilty, or any of those unpleasant emotions that he hates, because he's feeding off of the emotion in Kendrick, not from, say, another source that goes directly to the Kiras itself . . ."

Nicole caught on and aimed her pepper spray at the box. Kendrick caught on a second too late, and by the time he made to charge at her, she'd pressed down. She stumbled backward at the force of the spray. It shot out, more than it normally would have, far more forcefully, almost like a small firehouse. It hit the box and it shot off of the small table and smacked against the wall on the other side, then fell to the floor with a clunk, the lid falling open.

Thousands of silvery bits of light zoomed out of the box and went directly to Kendrick, who fell to his knees just as Nicole tossed the pepper spray away form her.

"Get your mum out and yourself out," he ordered.

"What about you?" she asked while she coughed, ignoring Kendrick, who was on his knees, sobbing and clutching his chest.

"I can handle it, but you, you need to get out. I'll meet you out there in a second." Unlike her, he had lung reserves.

She started dragging her mother out while she coughed and spluttered.

The pepper spray was filling the area quickly. Since the area itself was cramped and tiny, it wouldn't take long for everyone to feel the effects. The Doctor felt his eyes start to burn and his throat start to itch irritably as he ran around, pointing his screwdriver into each of the locks on the cuffs. The women started stirring in their sleep, waking probably form the irritation the pepper spray was causing. By the time he got the fifth girl out, all of the girls were coughing, and some were waddling out of the ship to get away from the pain, although some of them were too dazed from whatever drugs he'd been giving them to walk in a straight line.

By the time he freed each of the girls, Kendrick was sobbing hysterically, curled up in ball on the floor of his ship, clutching his hair and screaming out. He made sure all of the pregnant girls made it out of the ship before he followed them out, hacking, eyes burning, skin itching and throat raw.

As soon as he made it out of the ship and out of the abandoned building it had crashed into, he saw all of the pregnant women coughing and rubbing their eyes, making odd little choked whines and crying noises.

He blinked a few times, trying to see through the blur. It was a good thing that he managed to unlock all of the shackles as quickly as he did, because they'd only been in there a maximum of two minutes after Nicole had sprayed the box, and they were experiencing mild irritation. If they had been there longer, it would have been a near catastrophe. He could barely see as it was, and his eyes burned. He would have to go to his TARDIS soon and wash out his eyes. He really wasn't looking forward to spending too long with this pain.

"Hey, John," Nicole said. He blinked a few times and looked at her. She was standing beside her mother's unconscious body. He rubbed his eyes and groaned a bit, trying his hardest to ignore all the other women moaning in pain as well. "Is everyone going to be all right?"

"Yeah, they'll be fine, give or take an hour. Stings, though."

"Right, so, um . . . They're all still pregnant, 'cause he isn't dead . . . What do we do?"

"We already did it. He's had that box for, well, lot longer than you've been alive, I can assure you. Thousands of species, thousand of feelings, all stuffed into that one box, all the left over feelings--all the feelings he's left inside, never taken out--all the guilt, the sadness, depression, helplessness, despair, hopeless, all the feeling he hates, more than anyone has ever felt before, all being sent to him, all being sucked inside of him, while he sits and cries in a ship that's, well, completely filled with more pepper spray than any person can handle, just letting it wash over him, poison him . . ."

"So we're just gonna let the pepper spray kill him?" she inquired.

"Well, that, or . . ."

There was a loud bang that filled the area, the sound of a gunshot, echoing through the night. The howling of sadness and rage that had been coming form inside the ship stopped immediately after, and the screams of the women intensified as they clutched their stomachs, falling over.

Nicole went to run over to them, but he grabbed her arm and prevented her for doing it. "They'll be fine. But their alien maternal instincts will kick in and attack anyone who touches them, so I'd wait a moment if I were you."

"But--but what happens when the babies die? Don't they need, like, medical assistance?"

"No, they're just tiny little babies. Each of them die, and the body will just absorb it, and then reject it. You know, like any other waste. They'll probably get a lot of protein form it. They'll be fine. I swear."

"Oh . . . So, he killed himself. He just . . . shot himself in the head."

"Or the chest, which is most likely. Remember, they all think that--"

"--feelings come from the heart, yeah I know."

The Doctor rubbed his eyes and peered through the blur, looking at all the women who were now wandering around looking confused. Their stomachs were all back to normal now, but they all still seemed to be in pain from the pepper spray; not to mention they were coughing. Even he was coughing.

She nudged his arm with her elbow and he glanced at the blur he associated with her. "We did good."

"We did _well,"_ he corrected.

"No, I meant--actually, yeah, we did well, but I meant this--_this_--was a good thing. We saved all these girls. We killed the bad guy." She nudged him again, and he couldn't really tell because of the fact his vision was blurry and his lids were half closed because they were swollen, but he had a feeling that she was smiling at him. "We did _good."_

"And well."

"Yep, we did good well."

He chuckled and he heard her chuckle along with him. He nudged her back. "It feels nice, eh, Nicole?"

"It does."

* * *

A/N--sup, everyone. The next chapter will be the last chapter of Bleeding Hearts. Just thought you might like a, you know, heads up.


	7. Chapter 7

_A Week Later_

Nicole sighed as she walked down the street, holding her empty briefcase, ignoring it as it bounced off of her leg. John and her had gotten along quite well the past week. It was almost like they had become friends. She wouldn't go so far as to say best friends, or good friends, but . . . Well, more than acquaintances. She hoped. It was a nice change to actually talk to someone. Of course she had people she talked to, but the last three years of her life had been mainly concerned with her mother. She'd quit her job at the café to help her mum when it first started happening, and had only accepted the job at the school because her mother asked her to. So other than a few acquaintances from the school and her mother, she hadn't had much companionship. She wished she could say it didn't bother her, she wished she could say that she didn't need anybody, that she was fine . . . But she had been rather lonely, until John started showing interest in her (even if at first it was just because he thought she was the Kiras, but he continued it after the whole ship incident, so maybe he actually thought she was interesting.)

She hadn't realized just how lonely she had felt until today. She'd gotten used to her and John's little talks. Yesterday had been his last day, and today had been hers. Going to her final day and John not being there had been an extreme let down; she sat alone and brooded. A few people wished her good luck and said that they had enjoyed her company. Some of them sounded sincere. Others had not. She wondered what John would have said. Oddly enough, he hadn't even said goodbye to her. Then again, he could have just been pretending. It couldn't have been too hard to pretend to be interested, seeing as he knew he was only going to be there a week. She preferred to think he actually liked her, because she liked him. Either way, she'd enjoyed herself.

Nicole walked by the café she used to work at, and with a small sigh, walked in. She had to get a job sometime. They understood why she had to leave so she hoped they wouldn't look too harshly on her for quitting. At least she had experience.

Of course, she got about five feet in the door before she saw the familiar blonde girl sitting at the bar, and all thoughts of an application left her mind.

"Rose?" she called uncertainly.

The girl turned, and Nicole let out a sigh when she realized it really was her. She would have been completely embarrassed if it hadn't been. "Hey, Nicole," she greeted.

Nicole walked closer to her, considering hopping up on the stool beside her, but Rose hopped off of her seat so she could standing front of her. She looked her up and down, looking a bit confused, then back into her eyes. "You look . . . different."

"Different?"

"Bit taller. And, er, thinner." Rose tilted her head a bit, then brushed off her shirt. "How long has it been since the night at the school?"

"Three years. Um, this is . . . an odd question, but, er, how long has it been for you?"

"A week, maybe," she answered, chuckling and shaking her head. "Not often you get to ask that question seriously, is it?"

Nicole laughed airily, realizing that it was a bit strange to be able to ask how long it had been since they'd last seen each other, and the answer was different to each of them. "Well, you and the Doctor don't exactly lead normal, linear lives, do you?"

"No, you're right about that."

Nicole shook her head. "This is so weird. I mean, I was looking for you two all last week, and now I find you, when I'm not looking."

"All last week? Really?"

"Well, er . . . Technically, more like one day out of last week. But I kept looking, but I just . . . I didn't exactly need you after that day." Rose shook her head a bit and furrowed her hazel eyes, apparently confused. "Oh, sorry--aliens."

"Oh. Are they still--I mean, if you need help or somethin', me an' the Doctor can probably stick around for a bit. I'm sure he won't mind stayin' a bit longer."

"It's fine, I took care of. Well, not just me, no, um . . . I had help. Well, John actually did most of the work. No, um . . . we took care of it."

She nodded and smiled widely. "That's good. Really. So, um . . . How is everything?" she asked tentatively. "I mean, the last time we saw each other, you were . . . upset."

Nicole felt her cheeks burn a little bit and she shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, right . . . Well my sister just died. I'm really sorry about how I . . . how I acted. No, everything's fine now. Well, as fine as it can be. I'm coping; I'm fine. There are times when I miss Vanessa, but . . . I'm not like suicidal or anything."

"How're your mum an' dad?"

"I wouldn't know about my dad. Haven't seen him since I was five. Mum, she . . . Well, she was just committed to the mental hospital three days ago."

"Oh, that's horrible, I'm so sorry." Rose reached forward as if to hold her shoulder, but hesitated and pulled her hand away. Nicole could hear genuine sympathy in her voice, though, and that was all she really could ask for.

"It's . . . it's fine. It's what Mum wanted. I offered to take care of her, but she just said that . . . that a proper mother wouldn't drag her kid's life down with her."

Nicole had wanted to take care of her mother, but she'd insisted, saying that even though she didn't have feelings, she knew what she should do, and she apparently thought that entailed letting the proper people take care of her. Although she didn't really want to admit it, her mother was right--Nicole could never take care of her as well as nurses and psychologists could. She'd been upset, of course, but through talking it over with John she realized it was for the best--even if she was still a little irritated and let down over the fact.

As for Kendrick's body and the ship, Torchwood had taken care of that. It really didn't surprise her that John knew the number, but he left and took Nicole with him, saying that they weren't needed, and that it probably wasn't best for him to stick around with "that crowd" anyway. When she asked what Torchwood was, he'd only shrugged and said something about special ops for aliens. They had apparently interrogated the girls, but when they had come back, they had no recollection of the events. Nicole had heard of repressing memories, but that was just strange.

"At least she was doing what was best for you."

"Yeah. Yeah, she was." She looked Rose over, still a little unnerved at the fact that what had been days to her had been years to Nicole. "I'm sorry, it's just--it's just so weird to think that a few days ago, I was still eighteen. It's just . . . So weird."

"Eighteen? And you were still in school?"

"No, no. I just went there to look after my sister." She scoffed looked downward. "Did a bang-up job of that, didn't I?"

This time, Rose didn't hesitate. She held onto her shoulder and squeezed it gently. "It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, I know." Rose squeezed her shoulder once more, then pulled her hand away. The silence was beginning to get awkward, so Nicole cleared her throat. "So where's the Doctor? Off fighting aliens or something?"

"Ah, no. He's getting parts for the TARDIS, and I think he's probably fixing it up a bit."

"Hmm?"

"That blue box we left in. It's called a TARDIS."

"Ah yes, your . . . time machine. Have you, I mean . . . You must have, but . . . God, you must have seen so many things. I can't imagine all of the things."

"I saw my dad," she said slowly, furrowing her eyebrows. "He, er . . . He died. Then I made a fool of myself and went back again." She shook her head and scoffed. "He was right, Nicole--you don't want to go back on your own timeline. There were two sets of us, I saved my dad, I even touched myself, and . . . And it does create a paradox. I know that doesn't help you, doesn't make you feel better, but . . . Trust me, he was right. You really couldn't have gone back and saved her."

Nicole smiled weakly at her. She was right--it didn't make her feel any better. She looked around the café for a second, the silence awkward again. "Well, I've gotta go. Um, when the Doctor shows up from, er . . . fixing the TARDIS, would you tell him I'm sorry for, er . . . acting like an idiot? Yelling at him and that stuff?"

"Yeah, sure. He should be back soon--he said it wouldn't take very long. I'll make sure to give him the message."

"Maybe I'll see him on my way home. If I do, I'll tell him," she said.

Rose playfully punched Nicole's shoulder while. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

Such a normal sentence held so much abnormality to it, coming form her. Nicole laughed, then nodded. "Maybe. Bye."

She left the café and started on her way home, realizing about a block away that she had forgotten to grab an application. With a sigh, she promised herself she would grab it tomorrow, and continued on her way home. Her empty, lonely home.

When she walked, she purposely took the path that went right by the TARDIS, as she knew it was now called. She stared at it for a bit, a thought occurring to her as she did so. Rose had said the Doctor was fixing his TARDIS, so that meant he had to be inside it . . . Would the door be locked if he was inside it?

She walked over to it, and saw that John was standing a few feet from it, his hands in the pockets of his blue suit. He stood with his legs spread a little bit and he swayed slightly, grinning at her. "Nicole," he greeted, looking genuinely pleased to see her.

"John," she said, smiling at him. She walked over to him and he tilted his chin back, looking even more pleased, if possible. "Guess what? You'll never believe who I just--"

"Hey!" she heard her voice say. _Her_ voice. For a second she thought she'd had a moment of Tourette's Syndrome, then she heard her voice again. "Hey! You two! Hey!"

Both her and John shared a quizzical look, then turned in the direction of the voice. And it really _was_ her. Almost exactly--in fact, _exactly_ like her. Except she had a fuller face, a happier expression, and she was wearing different clothes. Nicole looked down at her blue jeans and long-sleeved black shirt, and then she looked at the other Nicole's clothing style. She was wearing a long, black skirt with a white button-up shirt. She had never seen those clothes before. She certainly didn't own any shirts that fit her that well.

"Hey, Nicole! What? _Two_ Nicoles?" John exclaimed dramatically as the other Nicole ran towards them, her mousy brown hair blowing behind her, her dull, blue eyes sparkling.

It seemed so surreal, like a vividly coloured, fast-moving dream. It left an uneasy feeling in her stomach. A part of her was remembering what Rose had mentioned briefly about paradoxes, and how the Doctor was right to tell her not to go back but she couldn't believe it . . . it was too strange.

The other Nicole grabbed John's tie and yanked on it, forcing his head down. "Well hello there!" She greeted cheerily. "You are a very tall man, aren't you?" Nicole frowned. There was something different about the way she spoke. Something familiar, but off. It sounded just like her so she couldn't place what was off about it.

John looked absolutely confused, with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth turned up in an odd, puzzled little shape. "What? What? You can't be here! What are you doing? Eh? What?"

"You are a _very_ gorgeous man, Mister Smith," she said, smacking his cheek slightly, then ruffling up his hair. John reached up to stop her from messing up his hair, but she only did for a few seconds so she pulled away from him before he could do anything. "Love the hair." She winked at him.

"What's going on?" Nicole finally asked, finding her voice.

"Watch this," the other Nicole said, then ran right over to Nicole, and grabbed her face. John let out a strangled little shriek and reached out as if to pull her away, but the other Nicole chuckled and smiled at her as if this was the most interesting thing. "Two sets of us, and I'm touching you, and nothing's happening. No paradoxes. None. Isn't that interesting?" She then grabbed a strand of Nicole's hair and tugged it.

"Ouch," Nicole muttered.

The other Nicole raised her eyebrows at her. "You two are just . . . I could kiss you. 'Cept, you know, that would be weird." She then smiled at the both of them, and started running off in the direction Nicole had come from. "Bye!" she called over her shoulder.

Nicole watched as her other self kept running; watched until she was nothing more than a little pinprick. "Er . . . that . . . wasn't normal, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," he agreed, his voice low. He stared off in the direction she'd went in, his brows furrowed. "That shouldn't have happened. She--well, you--shouldn't have been able to do that. It's not a time travel thing, either."

"Well obviously, I don't travel through time," she said.

"No, this is something . . . More sinister than that . . ."

Nicole's heart skipped a beat. "Oh God, really?"

He turned a serious expression towards her, his brown eyes dark, his brows furrowed and his lips drawn tight. Then he broke out into a grin. "Nah, I'm only kidding. Probably just some sort of parallel universe. If her touching you didn't do anything bad when there were two of you, then there really isn't anything to worry about. As long as neither of you go and do something stupid."

"Thanks for giving me a heart attack John."

"So, er . . . What were saying before you so rudely interrupted you?" He let out a few laughs and grinned, brown eyes sparkling. "Not every day you get to say that, huh?" He rocked back and forth on his feet and raised his eyebrows.

She chuckled. She opened her mouth to answer his question, then she frowned. "I can't remember. Seeing myself sort of . . . Made me lose my train of thought . . ."

"Understandably so."

They both smiled at each other, and he kept rocking on his heels. She looked him over, noticing just how much contrast his red chucks made against his blue suit. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going travelling?"

"And I am. Just waiting for you."

"Why?" she asked, unable to think of any reason he would be waiting for her next to the TARDIS--except for the fact he probably knew she was going to stop by here seeing as she walked by it every day. She had stopped knocking on it a few days ago, but she always stared at it for a minute or so, willing for the Doctor to come out.

He didn't answer. Instead, he gestured the TARDIS with a jerk of his chin. "Think it's locked?"

"Why wouldn't it be? It always is."

He smiled at her and stopped rocking on his feet. "Wanna check?"

She opened her mouth to either say that of course she wanted to, or to exclaim about how rude it was to just open the door without knocking. From what Rose had said about him fixing the TARDIS, she was sure he was in there, because after fixing it he would have gone straight to the café to pick her up and they would have crossed paths. She would have recognized him anywhere. She'd even kept an eye out for an intimidating man with short hair, bright blue eyes, and funny ears. Besides, if he was in there and she just walked in, it wasn't like she could hide from him and leave before he saw her and she got all embarrassed. It's not like there would be much room inside of it.

After she stood there with her mouth opening and closing like a fish for a few seconds, he must have grown impatient with her uncertainty, so he ambled over to the TARDIS, keeping his eyes on her, a depth in them she didn't understand, until he walked passed. She turned around to see him go over and lean on it, back against the door.

She walked over to it and stood in front of the door, and he moved so that his shoulder was leaning against it. "Go on. Knock. Try the handle."

She raised her hand, then thought of the Doctor's face when he opened the door. She thought of how he would react. She had to admit, he had seemed quite intimidating, or at least that was her memory of him. And the fact that he was probably actually in there and she wasn't in a life or death situation and she was just knocking on his door for no reason . . . How would he react? He hadn't seemed like an unpleasant man, but she hadn't exactly been nice to him. And it wasn't like they'd spent hours talking, either. What was she going to say? That she just dropped by to apologize for being rude three years ago? Well, to him, about a week.

She lowered her hand.

"What's wrong? You've never been nervous to knock before," he pointed out. She looked at him, noticing his casual shoulder-lean against it, his curious face only inches from hers. Then his eyes lit up and a look of dawning comprehension went over his face. "You actually think he's in there this time, don't you?" She nodded. "So?"

"Well he's a bit . . . I don't really need his help now, the aliens are gone, my life isn't in danger . . . How do you apologize to someone who saved your life, and then you turned around and blamed him for your sister dying? I mean, I made a huge prat of myself. I knew him for about five minutes, max, and . . ." She shook her head, cheeks burning.

"Oh, I imagine it's the same way you apologize for anything else. Go on. He's not gonna bite."

She took in a deep breath and knocked a few times. She waited for a few seconds, then nothing happened. With a slight glance at John, she tried the handle, and the door swung open.

She looked inside, and she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She walked in, still in a slight state of shock.

"How the . . . what?" she muttered while she looked around, staring up at the ceiling, looking around the mostly circular area, with something that looked like corals or smooth, branchless trees curving upwards out of the floor--which she could see through, and see what she assumed must have been the engine. It was brown, and in the centre was a control area. There was a hall with doors down it, or at least it looked like it. It was impossibly huge. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever how this could exist inside a police box. "It's . . . well, it's bigger--"

"--on the inside. Yep," John finished for her. She turned around to look at him, watching as he shut the door behind him. "Time Lord science. They invented it. Along with black holes. Those came first though. The black holes, I mean." She blinked at him, confused. "This isn't really here. Well, it is. It's a different . . . thing. Can't really explain it in human terms, really. Closest thing would have to be a tesseract."

She blinked a few times. "Time Lord?"

"Yep. Time Lord. They have this nifty trick you should know about--it's like cheating death. They regenerate. Get a new face, new body . . ."

She blinked a few times. "Wait . . . They can change?"

"Yep. He could look completely different. So he could be anyone. He could be a cashier, he could be an actor on the telly, he could be one of those guys on the side of the street selling roses . . . He could be _anyone,_ Nikki."

She scoffed. "Ugh, I hate that--don't call me Nik--" A thought struck her. An impossible thought. No, it was too--it was too crazy. She stared at him, looking at the smug little half smile on his face, and she shook her head. "No," she stated, refusing to believe it.

"Oh, yes," he said, grinning triumphantly.

John had just called her Nikki, much like the Doctor had the one time she had met him. It wasn't that no one had ever called her that before, but there was just something about the way he said it, plus the whole circumstance they were in . . . but no, he couldn't be . . . He was just joking.

"I don't . . . I don't believe you," she managed, looking him over.

"Clearly you do. Come on, you know you're rubbish at lying; not even you believed that."

"But . . . No . . ."

"I regenerated. Really. I was dying, didn't really want to, so I changed. Into me. Well, new me. New, new me."

She opened her mouth, but had nothing to say, so she just shook her head a few times. This couldn't be. Even though it obviously was; even though she immediately started thinking of odd things he'd said the past week; even though bits and pieces started clicking together; even though it made perfect sense. It just couldn't be. "But . . ." she started, then shook her head.

"Did it scar?"

"What?"

"I shot you. It was an accident, of course. But I did. So did it scar?"

She blinked at him a few times, then pulled up her sleeve and showed him her arm. There was a thin, diagonal scar stretched across her upper left arm. "They gave me stitches for it." She pulled the sleeve down while he smirked at her. "So . . . Yeah, I'm a complete idiot."

"Nah, you're not. It's not like you humans have much experience with regeneration. But you didn't even look for me on the internet? Didn't see anything? At all?"

"Well I did once, but then I got this really bad virus, so I didn't try again."

He laughed, then nodded. "Oh, forgot about that! Good ol' Mickey the Idiot!"

"So . . . When you saw me, banging on the door, you--you knew who I was then, huh? Why didn't you tell me then?"

"I told you--I thought you were the Kiras. Course, I s'pose I could have told you any time this past week, but I like havin' people not know who I am every now and again. I like to be coy."

"Wait, so you--you thought I was Kiras because why? The only time you saw me before then was when I was at the store and my mum bumped into that girl."

"No, I saw you before then. When she almost got hit by that car. You're lucky I even saw that, just saw her step right off of the curb, and I was walking by."

"Yeah, but that happened after we met," she pointed out.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't exactly live in a linear timeline, do I? No, no, I saw your mum almost get hit by that car, then you recognized me as John--John Smith is a name I use more than enough times--and then I noticed you were touching her chest and you said she didn't have emotions. Why do you think I had to go use the loo just then? I can't see myself, can I? It would be a bit . . . Well, if you saw two of me, then you would have realized straight away who I was, not to mention the people around me would have been a bit, well . . . disoriented . . . Bit like you were just now, eh?" He furrowed his eyebrows and looked past her, apparently deep in thought. "But, I really am me, not some parallel universe me. Hey, wait, interesting thought, do you have an identical twin? Were you separated at birth with your . . . Twin person?"

"Um . . ."

"Well if you were separated you wouldn't know about it, would you?" he muttered rubbing the back of his neck and furrowing his eyebrows. "Nope, that was definitely weird. Identical twins have same DNA, if you had a piece of her hair--oooh, she took a strand of you hair, didn't she?--we could try it out--oh, oh! Wait! They don't have same fingerprints! Identical twins don't have the same prints--no one does--well, except for clones--but she touched you, didn't she? Ah, but we don't have anything in here to test it!" He let out a little growl of frustration and his hands flew up to his hair and clutched the top of his head while he grimaced.

She almost chuckled, staring at him, while he looked absolutely frustrated and confused. Somehow he managed to look cute, even though he was making quite a weird face.

He then dropped his hands to his sides, and his hair stuck up in all directions. He smiled at her. "So what are you gonna do now, Nicole?" he asked, thrusting his hands in his pockets while he walked forward slowly.

"What do you mean?"

He stopped right in front of her, and he had to tilt his head down in order to keep eye contact just as she had to tilt her head up because he was taller than her. "Well, here we are, me an' you . . ." He looked around as if he'd never seen the inside of his ship before.

"And?"

He looked back at her. "Wanna come along? Be my companion?"

She blinked at him. "You--you want me to come?"

He shrugged then walked right past her. She turned to look at him, and watched as he leaned up against the controls. He looked her over, a slow smile creeping across his features. "Yeah, why not? Come on, anywhere in space and time." He rested his hands behind the back of his head and widened his eyes. "You can see . . . _anything._ Galaxies you've never dreamed of; stars burning out . . . Skies that are multitudes of colours, and clouds of silver and gold, red suns, purple moons, orange seas . . . Come on. Whaddaya say?"

She couldn't help but smile at him. "Do you even have to ask?"

He just beamed at her and stopped leaning against the controls. "All right. But can I ask you something?" He sounded suddenly serious when he looked down at her, and she furrowed her eyes. She nodded, not sure if she really wanted him to ask whatever it was that made him get suddenly serious. "You're a bad liar. We both know it. That's how I knew your mum's emotions didn't disappear overnight. It's how I knew you weren't just tryin' to see what a police box looked like. But the thing is, no matter how bad you are at something, practice can make perfect. The more you tell a lie, the more believable it sounds . . . And when I asked you if it bothered you that your mum didn't love you, you said it didn't, and that's one of the main reasons I thought you were the Kiras."

She looked away from him and went to move . . . Somewhere. Not leave the TARDIS, but walk away, move around, so she didn't have to look at him. He grabbed her shoulder and made her look at him.

"How many times did you have to tell yourself that in order to make it sound so real, Nicole? Hmm? Did you ever . . . ever wonder? Or did you even believe it? Did you ever believe it?"

"John, I don't--"

"Doctor," he corrected, widening his eyes briefly as if to put emphasis on the word.

She sighed. "Doctor, I don't--" She let out a small sigh. "No. I never did."

He nodded slowly. "Well she must have, at some point. Otherwise she wouldn't have known what to do to be a proper mum without the feelings, okay? There are two people you can't lie to. That's you . . . And me. Even if you weren't rubbish at it." He let go of her shoulder and stared at her. She nodded at him. "You'll never need to lie to me, okay? So don't."

She nodded.

"Right then," he said, smiling widely and clapping his hands together and rubbing them. "Now that we've got that all taken care of, now all we have to worry about is where--and when--we're going." He turned around and started back over to the controls.

"And your TARDIS can really go anywhere?" she asked, still a little baffled at the fact it could, and that she was going to go with him.

He turned back to face her. "Oh, yeah, it can even go to--" Even though he stopped talking, his mouth kept moving for a second while his eyes suddenly furrowed. "What? I never told you it was called a TARDIS. How did you know that? Who told you?"

"Rose did, when she told me your were getting parts for it and fixing it up and stuff. Oh, that's what I was going to tell you before, er, I interrupted my, um, self. So are we going there first? Do you want me to go grab her before we go, or should we just drive this there. Wait . . . _can_ we drive this there?"

His face fell, and for a moment, it looked like she had somehow offended him. "I forgot that was today. She's at the café, waiting for me. I parked in an alleyway not even a block from it." He let out a small, humourless chuckle and shook his head, running one hand through his hair. "I came back, and you were there--but, wait . . . You were wearing that black skirt--it wasn't you, it was the other you--and you said something to me, then I walked in and . . . And Rose told me you wanted to apologize, so I assumed that must've been what you meant, but . . . But now that it wasn't you, it could have meant anything--or was it you, from a parallel world? What on earth would a parallel you have to say to me?"

"Wait . . . So the incident at the school wasn't a few days ago to you? It was to her."

"Of course it wasn't." He gave her a look that suggested he thought she was incredibly stupid. "I would've recognized you immediately if it had been. No, no, that's a different Rose; a different me . . . A different you."

Nicole hummed a bit, then titled her head to the side. "What did I say?"

"You said . . . Er . . . 'I am a fool. I could tell you to. So why don't I?' and then you just walked off. I always just thought that was you saying you couldn't get the apology out, but I mean, you've already apologized to my face, and obviously it hasn't happened yet if you didn't know you said that, and it doesn't really make sense if it was an alternate you, unless you yelled at me in the other world too, and somehow managed to get into this one . . . I don't see how . . ." He grabbed his chin and stroked it, eyes narrowed in thought.

"Which 'to' did I say? Like the one with one O or the number or what?"

"I don't know. Each one could work, really, when you think about it, 'cause I have no idea what the other you meant to say 'cause I don't know her. Yet. Or did I ever? Well, she knew the old me, but I . . . I don't know."

"Oh . . . Huh, that's weird. Anyway . . . Um, so are we gonna pick up the now Rose?" she asked.

He glanced at her, then quickly looked away, focusing on the controls and touching them, as if trying to decide which button to press and which lever to pull, but she had a feeling he was just trying to find something to do with his hands. "Rose isn't . . . she's, uh . . . She's . . . she's gone."

"Is she . . . Dead?" she ventured hesitantly.

He looked at her, then shook his head, smiling, although she didn't think much of his heart was in it. "No, no, she's alive, she's fine--she's just not here." He looked her over, and his face suddenly changed, as if a horrible idea struck him, and he looked frightened by it. "Why? You're not gonna change your mind, are you?"

She laughed a bit, then shook her head. "No. I'm still coming with you. I trust you . . . Doctor."

He grinned. "And rightly so."

* * *

A/N--yeah, this chapter was weird--but it was done purposely, and all will be explained . . . eventually. This was the last chapter of the first installment of my series (there will be thirteen.)

So, anyway . . . today (July 23rd) is my birthday. How old do you think I am? Older than I look, but seeing as none of you have seen me, that doesn't help.


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